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 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
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iFrontfsjjtece. 
 
 She was sitting beside the railing of the fence of the Brick Church, 
 on the corner of Park Row and Beekman Street. p. 12. 
 
OR, 
 
 THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 
 
 No. 316 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK: No. 147 NASSAU ST. 
 
 BOSTON: No. 9 CORN HILL CINCINNATI: 41 WEST FOURTH ST. 
 
 LOUISVILLE: No. 103 FOURTH ST. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by the 
 AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 
 in the ClerVs Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 $9" No boohs are published by the American Sunday-School Union 
 tvithout the sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of four- 
 teen members, from the following denominations of Christians, viz. Bap- 
 tist, Methodist, Congregational, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and 
 Reformed Dutch. Not more than three of the members can be of the same 
 denomination, and no book can be published to which any member of the 
 Committee shall object. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The luxuries, temptations, and crimes of 
 great cities are so obvious as to have become 
 proverbial ; so that, perhaps, we are in danger 
 of overlooking God's work in 1 the same. If 
 Rome was, according to a famous saying, a 
 "sink of iniquity," and Corinth was but an- 
 other name for a home of voluptuousness, these 
 same points were nevertheless radiating centres 
 of the gospel. 
 
 The newspapers, catering for a depraved 
 hankering after the details of flagitious deeds, 
 keep the country duly informed of all the igno- 
 rance, superstition, drunkenness, mendicity, 
 starvation, theft, violence, and destruction of 
 the town, till, perhaps, the country is ready to 
 
 forget that Christ has a people, and that the 
 
 l* 5 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Holy Spirit is doing wonders of grace within 
 these same limits. 
 
 The truth is, wherever God's people are 
 found adjacent to masses of evil, they are seen 
 to operate mightily on these masses. When 
 the enemy comes in most like a flood, the Lord 
 lifts a standard most on high. The more 
 iniquity becomes rampant, the more does holy 
 love contend against it. Such should seem to 
 be the order of divine administration, in all 
 cases short of utter rejection, or those in 
 which the Lord sends Lot out of the Sodom 
 which no longer contains its ten righteous. 
 Hence, the diligence, the skill, the self-denial, 
 and the liberality of true Christians in cities 
 and great towns have been remarkable in every 
 age. For the exercise of these graces there 
 is, alas ! too much requisition ; and the utmost 
 endeavours of an army of earnest workers can- 
 not as yet counterwork the busy sons of 
 Belial. 
 
 It is a most cheering consideration that there 
 is no evangelical church in our cities and great 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 7 
 
 towns which does not comprise a goodly num- 
 ber of beneficent persons, who spend a portion 
 of their time in works of mercy ; in visiting 
 the fatherless and the widows, and what the 
 Bible calls strangers — that is, foreigners ; in 
 relieving the sick, the aged, and the prisoner ; 
 in gathering and teaching the ignorant ; in dis- 
 pensing good books ; and in kindred endeavours 
 to glorify God by lessening sin and woe. 
 There are not a few city disciples who devote 
 their whole available time to such labours. 
 
 Public attention has, for a few years, been 
 specially directed to the vagrant youth of our 
 streets. From among these, many have already 
 been rescued and placed in the way of im- 
 provement, under kind and religious guardians. 
 The pages which follow relate such a case, not 
 in the shape of ingenious fiction, but in the un- 
 varnished record of literal truth. 
 
 The name of Maria Cheeseman has for a 
 number of months been familiar to the church 
 which I serve ; and many of our brethren have 
 been witnesses of the events to be related in 
 
8 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 the following pages, and have traced them, step 
 by step, to the happy conclusion. Although 
 the names of the good Samaritans "who found 
 this suffering one by the wayside are covered 
 in the narrative by a slight veil, they will be 
 recognised by hundreds of readers, and will 
 thus add authority to the evidence. The story, 
 as it now appears, was prepared by a gentleman 
 of the bar, who is at the same time a valued 
 member of the church under my pastoral care. 
 The text of the publication will itself evince 
 the diligence and Christian love with which he 
 has performed his task ; it only remains for us 
 who stood by and beheld the providential 
 development to attest the truth of the nar- 
 rative. 
 
 If the very remarkable series of incidents 
 here set forth should secure as warm an inte- 
 rest in the reading public as it has already 
 aw T akened in those who have seen and heard it, 
 the result will be important in several respects. 
 The marvellous w r ays of the God of providence 
 will seem manifestly the same in our modern 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 nme as in the days of old; and thoughtful 
 believers will remember the youth of Joseph 
 and of Daniel. The blessed work of Sunday- 
 schools will shine more brightly in the eyes of 
 the church. In particular, the u merciful man" 
 will be led to go out into the thoroughfares 
 with fresh hope of snatching children and youth 
 from the destruction which this moment threat- 
 ens tens of thousands. 
 
 In conclusion, it must be permitted me to 
 say, that if there are in the church on earth 
 any servants of God who deserve our affection- 
 ate respect, our intercessory prayers, our aid, 
 and our imitation, it is those who, as Sunday- 
 school teachers, missionaries, and visitors, ad- 
 dress themselves to the unpaid, w T earisome, and, 
 in certain respects, disgusting and thankless 
 work of daily converse with ignorance, pauper- 
 ism, and vice. Go on, honoured and beloved 
 brethren and sisters in Christ ! Be not weary 
 in well-doing ! Walk thus in the Master's 
 steps ! 
 
 J. W. A. 
 
MARIA CHEESEMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FIRST INTERVIEW. 
 
 The first day of the year eighteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-four was Sunday. It was 
 clear and cold — one of the coldest days 
 of that year. The streets of the city 
 were almost deserted, and the few that 
 were about were well guarded against the 
 biting frost. Here and there a " newsboy" 
 was seen braving the keen air and crying 
 his papers, while his teeth chattered, and 
 every gust of wind seemed to pass through 
 and through him. Here and there, too, a 
 shivering woman or a half-frozen child 
 might be seen at the corners, with apples 
 and candy to sell. But with these excep- 
 tions, the current of life, flowing back and 
 forth through the streets of the great metro- 
 polis, seemed for the time congealed. 
 
 11 
 
12 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 On the morning of this day, a girl, ap- 
 parently about twelve or thirteen years of 
 age, was seen sitting beside the railing of 
 the fence of the brick church on the corner 
 of Park Row and Beekman Street. She 
 wore an old patched cloak ovfcr a soiled 
 dress, and a thin, common calico sun-bonnet. 
 She had by her side a basket filled with 
 apples and candy. 
 
 She was shivering with cold. She had a 
 full face, made ruddy and rough by exposure 
 to the piercing wind ; and though she had a 
 sad, suffering look, one could not fail to see 
 patience and truthfulness in her counte- 
 nance. She had light hair, decently combed, 
 and the expression of her mild blue eye in- 
 dicated an unusual degree of gentleness and 
 delicacy. 
 
 On that Sunday morning, as Mr. C , one 
 
 of the secretaries of the American Sunday- 
 school Union for the district of New York, 
 was passing the place, he noticed this little 
 girl with her basket. "Surely," thought 
 he, " some stern necessity must have driven 
 her out in this severe weather;'' and he 
 stopped and spoke to her. 
 
 " Where do you live, little girl ?" 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 13 
 
 "At 'No. 345 Pearl Street, in the third 
 story." 
 
 " And why do you sell candy and apples 
 on Sunday ?" 
 
 "I can't help it, sir." 
 
 " Do your parents allow you to break the 
 Sabbath?" 
 
 " I have no parents : they are both dead." 
 "Whom do you live with?" 
 " I live with Miss Dougherty." 
 
 There was an air of good-breeding about 
 the child, and a frankness in answering, 
 that enlisted the friend's attention, and her 
 sufferings from the intense cold at once 
 awakened his sympathies. 
 
 He proceeded to question her further. 
 
 "Why do you live with Miss Dougherty?" 
 
 "Oh! I belong to her. She takes care 
 of me." 
 
 " How long ago did your father and mo- 
 ther die ?" 
 
 " My father died in England before we 
 came to this country, and my mother died 
 here, after we came over; and my step- 
 father gave me to old Miss Dougherty." 
 
 "Can you read?" * 
 
14 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN J OR, 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Have you got a Bible?" 
 
 "No, sir. I used to have one, but I 
 haven't any now." 
 
 He at once went to his room in the rear 
 of the Brick Church, brought out a New 
 Testament, and opened it, and asked her to 
 read ; and found she could read quite well. 
 
 " Would you like to go to Sunday-school ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but Miss Dougherty won't let 
 me. She makes me sell apples and candy 
 every Sunday." 
 
 "Perhaps I will come and see you. 
 Where did you say you live ?" 
 
 "At 345 Pearl Street, in the upper story." 
 
 " Will you keep this Testament and read 
 it, if I will give it to you ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I will" 
 
 He gave the Testament to the child, and 
 went about his official duties. Passing 
 round through the Park and on the side- 
 walks opposite to the church, she continued 
 to sell her apples and candy during the 
 whole of this severe day, until dark. She 
 watched the people, and saw other children, 
 with their parents, going to the house of 
 God. She heard faint sounds of music as 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 35 
 
 the assembly of God's people sung his 
 praises, and all these things awakened sad 
 memories in her heart, for she too had been 
 taught to frequent the house of God. 
 
 It was on this same New year's day that 
 a new mission Sunday-school had been 
 opened at 143 Reade Street, in a little room 
 about twenty-five feet wide. A Sunday- 
 school connected with a church in the upper 
 part of the city had established this school 
 and paid all its expenses. They employed 
 a missionary to conduct it on Sunday, and 
 during the week to visit the poor in the 
 vicinity, going from house to house, acquiring 
 their confidence; to pray with them, per- 
 suading them to send their children to the 
 Sunday-school ; to distribute tracts and 
 Bibles ; to minister to the sick and dying, 
 and to provide homes in the country for the 
 orphans, the neglected, and the forsaken. 
 
 This mission-school was opened in one of 
 the many dreary moral wastes in the city of 
 New York where there is no Sabbath, no 
 church, and no Sunday-school ; where scarcely 
 a Bible can be found in any habitation ; 
 where the houses are crowded with emi- 
 grants ; where the streets swarm" with mise- 
 
16 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 rable, ragged, half-civilized children; and 
 where the haunts of sin and shame are seen 
 on every side. 
 
 The Sunday-school that had undertaken 
 this missionary work, and the church with 
 which it was connected, were once situated 
 near the place where the new mission-school 
 was organized. For, as most of our readers 
 are aware, the business portions of the great 
 metropolis have gradually extended until 
 they have embraced large sections that were, 
 a little while ago, occupied with dwelling- 
 houses. The inhabitants being thus driven 
 away by the advance of commercial enter- 
 prise, sought residences in the remote por- 
 tions of the city, and there provided them- 
 selves with houses of worship. Of course, 
 those who did not remove were, in many 
 cases, left without their accustomed church 
 privileges. The edifice in which the gospel 
 had been preached being removed, and the 
 site occupied by some magnificent hotel 
 or block of stores, no monument remained 
 to indicate the spot where once the gospel 
 of Christ had been preached, and where 
 once stood a temple dedicated to his wor- 
 ship. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 17 
 
 It need not be said that by thus withdraw- 
 ing the means of grace from the midst of 
 those who most needed them, the kingdom 
 of darkness gained quite as much as the 
 kingdom of Christ. The people of God 
 were taking great care of themselves, but 
 the servants of the world and sin were left 
 to wander and perish. The Sunday-school 
 connected with the church in its new loca- 
 tion resolved to raise one solitary banner of 
 the cross to mark the spot which once they 
 had possessed in the name of the Lord. 
 They believed in the command, " Go 
 preach," as well as " Come, hearken." 
 
 Upon this, the first Sunday in the year, 
 the first humble effort of this mission-school 
 
 was made. Mr. C , the missionary, was 
 
 present in the morning. Fourteen or fifteen 
 scholars came, but no seats could be pro- 
 vided. In the afternoon they came again, 
 each received a tract and a few words of 
 counsel, and then they were dismissed with 
 promises of better accommodations the next 
 Sunday. The person who had met the little 
 candy-girl on the street in the morning, 
 came to this school in the afternoon to wit- 
 ness the first experiment. As he sat by the 
 
 2* 
 
,18 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 fire with the missionary, Mr. C , after 
 
 the scholars had gone, he spoke about the 
 little girl he had met in the morning, and 
 about the probability of finding her. He 
 could not forget her sad, suffering counte- 
 nance. 
 
 It was now nearly dark. " Do you think 
 we can find her? Had w^e better try it 
 to-night?" were ventured questions. 
 
 The missionary was a man of work. He 
 said — 
 
 "I think we can find her. "We can try it, 
 at least;" and so they concluded to go in 
 search of the girl. 
 
 It was a freezing night. She lived away 
 more than a mile from them. As they 
 hurried on through the forsaken streets, 
 pinched with the cold, they beguiled the 
 time in a dialogue like the following : 
 
 " Well, it would be too bad if, after all 
 this, the little thing should deceive us!" 
 
 " Yes ; I should not like to be imposed on 
 such a cold night as this." 
 
 "But she seemed like an honest, well-bred 
 child ; and we must not take it for granted 
 that all these poor, hard-working children 
 are impostors." 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 19 
 
 When they reached the place, they con- 
 cluded they had come on a fool's errand. 
 The house was a high one, and looked like 
 some large factory. There were no lights 
 in it, and it seemed deserted. One of them 
 looked up to the house, and said — 
 
 "Well, she does not live here. I think 
 we had better go home." 
 
 " But," said the other, " don't let us give 
 up, now we have got here; let us go up 
 stairs and look." 
 
 They entered the dark side-hall, and 
 groped their way up three flights of dirty, 
 rickety stairs to the garret of the house, 
 and there, some one in the entry said, lived 
 Mrs. Dougherty, on the opposite side of the 
 hall. They knocked at the door, and a 
 sharp female voice, in a very unwelcome 
 tone, said, " Come in." 
 
 They went in. It was growing dark, and 
 Maria had just come in from the street, and 
 was trying to light a fire. The fire afforded 
 just light enough to show a forlorn-looking 
 room, under the roof, with one window, and 
 one bed. Maria's basket, and the Testament 
 which had been given her in the morning, 
 were on the table, a heap of kindling-wood 
 
20 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 lay beside a little stove, and a few old chairs 
 comprised all the furniture and comforts of 
 this miserable apartment. Maria seemed 
 very much astonished to see them. The 
 woman was quite softened in her manners 
 when she saw two respectable-looking men 
 in her room, and received them with much 
 apparent good-will. She asked them to 
 take seats. She was a woman of small 
 stature, perhaps fifty years of age, spare 
 frame, thin, sharp features, with a hard, se- 
 vere expression. She seemed feeble in 
 health, and appeared as if sickness and dis- 
 appointment had soured her temper. 
 
 Mr. C told her he had met Maria in 
 
 the morning selling apples and candy, and 
 he was sorry to see her breaking the Sab- 
 bath, — that it was hard to compel such a 
 child to go out and labour all day on Sun- 
 day. 
 
 She said she knew it was bad, but she was 
 obliged to do it, — that she had nothing to 
 buy food even that day until Maria came 
 home with her money. 
 
 This was a hard argument to answer. 
 
 They then told her she ought to put her 
 to some other occupation, or into some 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 21 
 
 good family. No ; she would not do that. 
 Maria must work for her, or she would have 
 nothing to live on. She said Maria was 
 not as badly off as many other girls, — that 
 she had done a great deal for Maria, and 
 now she must work for her. Mr. C pro- 
 posed that she should go and live in his 
 family. The old woman would not hear a 
 word of it, and said, " She would not let 
 her go to live with the president," 
 
 "But you certainly must not send her 
 out on Sunday. Suppose you let her go to 
 the Sunday-school? We have just got a 
 new one started in Eeade Street, and we 
 want all the children we can get." 
 
 " No, sir ; I can't let her go : I am too 
 poor. I cannot get any thing to eat on 
 Sunday until Maria comes in ; and you 
 would not let a poor creature, like me, 
 starve to death, would you ?" 
 
 "But don't you know it is very wrong to 
 make a child, like her, break the Sabbath ?" 
 
 " Yes, I know it is ; but I don't think it 
 is so very wrong for poor folks to w T ork 
 Sunday, who can't live without." 
 
 They then asked the old woman if tjiey 
 might pray with her, and she consented. 
 
22 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 They kneeled in prayer in that miserable 
 garret, and in that prayer they commended 
 this little child to the care of God, and 
 asked that he would save her from sin and 
 wretchedness, and lead her in paths of right- 
 eousness, for his name's sake. 
 
 How that prayer in this upper room was 
 answered, the sequel of the child's history 
 will show. 
 
 From that hour, light began to shine on 
 * her pathway. The next New Year's day 
 did not daWn on her through the window 
 of that miserable garret. It did not behold 
 her toiling painfully, hopelessly, through cold 
 and snow, in the streets of New York, for her 
 daily bread, — a slave to the will of another. 
 
 Before leaving the old woman, these 
 visitors asked how much Maria earned on 
 Sunday. She said four or five shillings. 
 They then promised to give her fifty cents, 
 if she would allow Maria to come to the 
 Sunday-school the next Sabbath. She 
 finally consented to this arrangement. 
 
 They spoke a few kind words to Maria, 
 told her exactly where the school was, and 
 that she must certainly come ; and, paying 
 the fifty cents, they left her. The old wo- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 23 
 
 man professed great seriousness and regard 
 for religion, and was profuse in her bene- 
 dictions ; and they felt their way down the 
 dark stairway to the street. 
 
 Thus began, and thus ended, this New 
 Tear's day to the little subject of our story. 
 Its dawn brought no ray of joy to her as it did 
 to thousands of children in the great city; 
 but its close left a beam of hope, which 
 was like sunlight in her soul. She had found 
 a friend. Kind words, for the first time in 
 many years, had been spoken to her. 
 
 These gentlemen made their way home, 
 feeling that they had performed a duty in 
 visiting the fatherless, and hoping they had 
 found one scholar for the new mission- 
 school. This was all they knew ; but they 
 had, in truth, set in motion a train of causes 
 which, directed by the hand of Providence, 
 were to save this neglected orphan child 
 from a life of wretchedness. 
 
 We would here suggest that the true 
 mode of effectually prosecuting missionary 
 labour among the most abject in our great 
 cities, is to visit them in their homes. Go 
 and seek the lost in their cellars, in their 
 garrets, in their sin. Let the missionary do 
 
24 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 it statedly ; always labouring iu his own 
 district, from house to house, until he is 
 known, until he has gained general confi- 
 dence by iris sympathy, by his ministrations 
 in sickness, by his benefactions in their dis- 
 tress. He is thus prepared to gather the 
 pupils of his Sunday-school. He has a hold 
 upon them when secured, and can bring 
 religious truth to their more serious atten- 
 tion. 
 
 When he visits these children at home 
 during the week, the impressions made by 
 the two hours of Sunday teaching are con- 
 firmed, w 7 hile otherwise they might be ob- 
 literated by an unchecked course of worldli- 
 ness for the other six days. 
 
 "We believe that one great object of mis- 
 sion-schools should be to seek out and follow 
 up individual cases. The w r ild, ragged, and 
 wicked children of our city will never be 
 saved in the mass. If they are saved at all, 
 it will be by taking them one by one, wherever 
 they can be found. The visiting missionary 
 will get the confidence of a large number of 
 parents. Some pinched by poverty, and some 
 in order to remove their offspring from their 
 own sinful example, will give up their chil- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 25 
 
 dren to him, to provide a home. A widow 
 will leave her orphan to his kind care when 
 she dies. He will find a forsaken child 
 wandering in the streets. He will find the 
 young emigrant houseless, friendless, about 
 to be decoyed into a course of shame. He 
 will find the child, enslaved and abused by 
 another who has no legal control over her, 
 as was the case with her whose history now 
 engages us. One by one, he provides for all 
 these cases. This child will be sent to one 
 institution, and that to another ; one to a 
 good place in the country, another to a good 
 family in the city. The law will be invoked 
 to give protection to the oppressed, for 
 whom a home with Christian influences 
 will be provided. There is hope for every 
 one thus rescued. There is scarcely any 
 hope for those who are not. 
 
 May not the labours of that mission- 
 school of which we have spoken, carried on 
 by a small band of self-denying teachers, be 
 adduced as an example ? 
 
 By the efforts of this humble institution, 
 sixteen children in one year have been re- 
 moved fcpm vile associations, miserable 
 dwellings, and extreme poverty, to homes 
 
26 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 of Christian influence — generally in the 
 country. Some were found wandering in 
 the streets, some left orphans, and given, as 
 one poor dying mother said, "to our folks." 
 One young emigrant girl, a stranger, just 
 landed, was found wandering in the streets, 
 without a single friend in the country. 
 Some were given up by their parents, who, 
 with one spark of parental love left, desired 
 to save their children from their own sinful 
 courses. One, a little boy, was found al- 
 most starved to death in the streets, driven 
 away by a drunken father. 
 
 All honour be to those who are engaged 
 in these labours! The mission-schools of 
 our great cities are among the most remark- 
 able features of our times. Their rapid in- 
 crease and their wonderful success show 
 that the hand of God is in the movement. 
 
 They are the hope of our great cities, 
 and the true reform associations. Few 
 sights on earth are more touching to the 
 Christian heart than the view of the thou- 
 sands of poor children now gathered every 
 Sabbath in the mission-schools of the city 
 of New York. Let the eye waiader over 
 the area from river to river, on any Sunday, 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 27 
 
 looking in upon a band of German children 
 here, reading the Bible in the language of 
 the fatherland ; and there upon a school of 
 Jewish children, reading the lS~ew Testament. 
 Farther on is a collection of ragged news- 
 boys, and in another place a class of Chinese. 
 At the Five Points are a thousand or more 
 of sorrowing poor ; while all along the East 
 River is seen school after school, with from 
 three hundred to eight hundred children, 
 gathered from the docks and streets. Mark 
 the contrast! In the instruction of these 
 schools some of the best energy, talent, and 
 piety of the church is acting upon the worst 
 and most degraded elements of society. It 
 is like the sunlight breaking in upon the 
 clouds and chaos of an unfinished creation. 
 
 From the lips of these thousands of 
 wretched, neglected, and sinful children, the 
 voice of praise is resounding. The word 
 of God is read by them, and they hear the 
 voice of prayer. The hand of God is cer- 
 tainly in this work. Is it not emphatically 
 the work of the Christian churches in our 
 cities ? "What Christian can excuse himself, 
 when the finger of God's providence so 
 plainly points to his field of labour ? 
 
28 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Lift up your eyes ! Behold, the field is 
 white to the harvest ! The field is all around 
 you. You pass over it every day. There 
 are eighty thousand children, this day, in the 
 city of New York alone, without the privi- 
 leges of the Sunday-school, without the 
 means of grace, without the Bible. They 
 are heathen. Any number of these can be 
 brought under religious teaching. The pro- 
 vidence of God has prepared the field for 
 occupation. New enterprises are waiting on 
 every hand. The appeal for teachers is loud 
 and earnest. Veterans who have been 
 honourably dismissed from service have 
 heard the call, and have returned to duty. 
 The call for men is still pressing ; and yet 
 there are hundreds, yes, thousands of men — 
 young men, others in middle life, strong 
 men, rich men, men of leisure, educated 
 men, enterprising men — in our churches, 
 who have not responded to this call. When 
 pressed to enter this service, they say, " Oh ! 
 I cannot teach. I have tried it, and have 
 no faculty for it. I never could get along 
 with it. You must get somebody else, who 
 has a tact for it." 
 
 It is painful to hear a Christian man make 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 29 
 
 such excuses. Is it possible that the Lord 
 has made a man, given him education, com- 
 petency, a station in society, an enterprise 
 for business, a standing in his church, and has 
 shed abroad His love in his heart, awakened 
 holy and Christ-like emotions and sym- 
 pathies in his soul, — and yet has not given 
 this disciple of his the capacity to teach the 
 Bible to a poor, ragged, ignorant boy, wait- 
 ing for instruction in our mission-schools? 
 Does not the difficulty lie farther back ? Is 
 he really willing to do his duty ? Appeals 
 to such men are often answered by saying, 
 "Here is my money, but you must excuse 
 me." Not your's, but you, are called for. 
 Your gold and your silver are the Lord's al- 
 ready. He asks for you. The command is, 
 
 " GO, WORK TO-DAY IN MY VINEYARD." 
 
 " Rouse to some work of high and holy love, 
 And thou an angel's happiness shalt know — 
 Shalt bless the earth while in the world above. 
 
 The good begun by thee shall onward flow 
 In many a branching stream, and wider grow. 
 
 The seed that in these few and fleeting hours 
 Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sowed, 
 • Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, 
 And yield the fruit divine in heaven's immortal bowers. 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE RESCUE. 
 
 Ox Monday, the second day of the year, 
 Mr. C , the missionary and the superin- 
 tendent of the Eeade Street Sunday-school. 
 
 requested Miss M , one of the teachers 
 
 of that school, to make, if possible, some ar- 
 rangement with Mrs. Dougherty for Maria's 
 attendance regularly at school. The same 
 
 day, Miss M called at Mrs. Dougherty's, 
 
 in her garret, but was not very graciously 
 received. 
 
 She made known her errand, and urged 
 Maria's attendance at school on Sundays ; 
 but Mrs. Dougherty pleaded her great 
 poverty, and the necessity she was under to 
 use the child as a means of obtaining some- 
 thing to eat. To obviate these objections, 
 it was finally arranged that, for the present. 
 
 she would receive, through Miss M , fifty 
 
 cents' worth of groceries each week, and that 
 on this consideration, Maria should not be 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 31 
 
 sent out to sell apples and candy on Sunday, 
 but should be allowed to come to the school. 
 
 The little girl seemed to have waked up 
 to a new life. The idea of going to a Sunday- 
 school made her heart joyful, and lighted up 
 her thin, sad face with a glad smile. 
 
 Thus did this orphan find another friend 
 whom she will never forget. This was the 
 
 first visit of Miss M to this desolate 
 
 home, but not the last. This little girl had 
 now a strong hold on the heart of her 
 teacher. Her truthfulness, seriousness, affec- 
 tion, and gentleness, won the confidence of 
 all who knew her. During this severe 
 
 winter, Miss M was often seen in that 
 
 garret as a visitor and a comforter, led there 
 by affection for this orphan child, as well as 
 by a sense of duty. 
 
 On the next Sabbath — the second Sabbath 
 of the New Year — Maria (now familiarly 
 called "The Candy-Girl") was at the Sun- 
 day-school in Keade Street. Here, for the 
 first time since she left England, she was in 
 a place of worship, and heard the voice of 
 public prayer. Strange thoughts must have 
 passed through her mind — thoughts of other 
 days, when she had been a Sabbath scholar, 
 
32 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 in another land — a joyous, happy child. How 
 wide the chasm between! How dark her 
 path through it ! Yet an angel hand had 
 led her on. 
 
 She was placed in Miss M 's class, 
 
 and was found to be an intelligent scholar, 
 earnest in learning the truth. She showed 
 a maturity of judgment and a degree of 
 seriousness and good-breeding which at- 
 tracted unusual attention. For the first 
 time in more than five years, she read the 
 Bible. She also received a library-book. 
 Through these means, divine light began to 
 beam on her mind. 
 
 As she lived on the east side of the town, 
 at some distance from the Eeade Street 
 School, it was considered best that she 
 should attend the Roosevelt Mission Sun- 
 day-school, which was near her residence ; 
 and she w 7 as accordingly transferred to that 
 school during the ensuing week, and an ar- 
 rangement made with Miss S (her teach- 
 er there) to receive a ticket every Sabbath 
 for fifty cents' worth of groceries ; which 
 was taken by Maria to Mrs. Dougherty, as an 
 equivalent for her Sunday services in selling 
 apples. She was one of the best scholars in 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 33 
 
 the school — always present, attentive, and 
 thoughtful, and seemed to prize instruction 
 and the Bible as new and precious blessings. 
 
 How would all Sunday-school scholars 
 value one hour's instruction from the Bible, 
 if they were doomed for years to forego these 
 privileges — to hear no prayer — to visit no 
 church, nor even to read the Bible in all 
 that time ! 
 
 Maria had a refinement, a gentleness and 
 docility of manner which showed that she 
 had been trained under better influences than 
 those which now surrounded her. 
 
 Her first teacher, Miss M , and the 
 
 missionary, Mr. C , frequently visited her 
 
 during the winter at her forlorn home. 
 They found Mrs. Dougherty always there, 
 generally complacent, but always complain- 
 ing of her poverty. She told them that 
 Maria was an English child; that her mother 
 died many years ago at New York, when 
 Maria was very young, and before she could 
 do any thing for herself ; that she, (Mrs. 
 Dougherty,) by request of the child's father, 
 then took her and provided for her; and 
 that Maria had lived with her ever since. 
 She said Maria owed every thing to her, and 
 
34 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 she had now just become able to do some- 
 thing for her. From Maria they learned, in 
 general, that she came from England with 
 her parents about five or six years before ; 
 and that soon after they landed, her mother 
 died ; that her step-father, who was intem- 
 perate, had left her with old Mrs. Dougherty ; 
 and that she had ever since lived with her. 
 
 This was all that, as yet, was known of 
 the child's history. She attended Sunday- 
 school regularly during the winter and 
 spring of 1854, until the latter part of April. 
 Every week-day — in sunshine, rain, or snow — 
 she was seen in the streets, from sunrise till 
 night, selling apples and candy. 
 
 Her place of resort was along the Park, 
 in Chatham Street, opposite the Brick 
 Church, or by the Astor House, corner of 
 Vesey Street. Her face was well known to 
 those accustomed to pass these places, and 
 "the candy-girl" had many friends who 
 never knew her name, whence she came, or 
 whither she went. 
 
 It was a life of severe labour for a child. 
 
 Her friend, Mr. C , frequently paid her 
 
 a visit at the corners of the streets, and by 
 kind words encouraged her in her hard ser- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 35 
 
 vice. He hoped, by a kind Providence, to get 
 her a good situation in some family ; and this 
 seemed to be the height of her ambition. 
 
 During this time she said little about the 
 woman in whose garret she lodged ; but it 
 was afterwards learned that these were hard 
 times for the poor girl. The old woman had 
 
 become jealous of Mr. C , and feared 
 
 that he was trying to get the child away 
 from her. Her health- was feeble, and she 
 was growing daily more morose and severe. 
 She was, at times, impatient and cruel. She 
 was an Irish Catholic, and had been forsaken 
 by her husband. She had one son, about 
 sixteen years of age, who lived with her, and 
 was her especial pet — spending the money 
 that was earned by Maria's toil. 
 
 This poor girl suffered actual persecution 
 in her efforts to attend the Sunday-school. 
 She often, and, indeed, generally, went after 
 a cruel beating, as it was stated by those who 
 lived in the adjoining room. Yet she al- 
 ways went, and appeared cheerful and happy ; 
 for hope was lighted up in her heart, and she 
 there found friends and sympathy, for which 
 her heart had yearned for years in vain. 
 
 Maria was earning from fifty to seventy- 
 
36 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN ; OR, 
 
 five cents a day, for her employer, and she 
 might well fear to lose her. Almost every 
 day, when she came in from the streets, the 
 old woman would inquire if she had seen 
 
 Mr. C and talked with him, and what 
 
 he said ; and would accuse her of designing 
 to leave her. 
 
 She would attempt to awaken her fears, 
 
 too, by telling her that Mr. C only 
 
 wished to get her into some Protestant 
 family or school, and shut her up, to make 
 a Protestant of her ; and she was constantly 
 upbraiding Maria for caring more for Mr. 
 C and Miss M than for herself. 
 
 " This was about the hardest time I evei 
 had with the old woman," said the child. 
 " Sometimes, when she scolded at me, I 
 would cry, and then she would beat me ; and 
 she would get angry at the least word I said, 
 and strike me. She would say the Sunday- 
 school was a bad place ; that we ought not 
 to read the Bible. 
 
 Thus things went on until the latter part 
 of April, — the old woman receiving weekly 
 her supply of groceries. 
 
 The friends of Maria began to think it 
 was time that their weekly contributions 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 37 
 
 to Mrs. Dougherty should be withheld; 
 and accordingly Maria was soon after 
 notified that no more tickets would be 
 given. 
 
 On the next Sabbath, (April 22,) Maria 
 was not at the Sunday-school. The old 
 woman had refused to let her go, and the 
 tears and supplications of the girl were 
 unavailing. 
 
 She was sent out again into the streets, on 
 Sunday morning, to sell apples and candy. 
 It was a sad blow to her hopes and her pride, 
 and a terrible wound to her conscience. 
 She had been trying to do right and to be- 
 come respectable. In conversation, after- 
 wards, with Maria, we asked her, "What 
 seemed the darkest time in her life ?" 
 
 She said, " I rather guess it was when 
 Mrs. Dougherty took me away from the 
 Sunday-school. I thought, somehow, by 
 means of the Sunday-school, I might get 
 away from the old woman, and get a place 
 in a family ; but now I thought it was all 
 over, and that I never could get away." 
 
 A dark cloud of despair seemed to have 
 gathered over her again, and all her fond 
 hopes of rescue from her miserable life, were 
 
38 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OK, 
 
 disappointed. To her it seemed a calamity ; 
 but 
 
 " Behind a frowning proridence, 
 God hides a smiling face." 
 
 It was the means of her rescue, and of her 
 restoration to home and Mends. 
 
 Mr. C ascertained, on Monday, that 
 
 she had been taken away from the school, 
 .and he then determined to invoke the aid of 
 -the law and take Maria from the old wo- 
 man. The plan was matured during the 
 week, and on Saturday morning he con- 
 sulted a lawyer as to the possibility of arrest- 
 ins: Maria as a vagrant. It was found 
 practicable. He then went before one of the 
 authorities of the city, and made his affida^ 
 vit of the facts relating to her, stating her 
 orphanage, and the cruelty of the old woman. 
 An order was obtained for committing Maria 
 to the guardianship of the "Home for the 
 Friendless." But the most difficult part of 
 the task remained — namely, to seize the 
 child and convey her to her newly-con- 
 stituted guardians. 
 
 Before making the arrest, Mr. C con- 
 cluded to try persuasion with the old woman, 
 .and to get her consent to Maria's going to 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 39 
 
 some other place to live. He accordingly 
 went to Mrs. Dougherty's garret, found her at 
 home, and tried to persuade her to give up 
 the child. But she was very angry and abu- 
 sive, and said, as usual, that " Maria should 
 not go to live with any one — not even with 
 the president ; that she was her girl, and she 
 would keep her in spite of anybody." 
 
 Mr. C — — now proceeded to Chatham 
 Street, to find Maria. He did not find her 
 opposite the old church, and he went to the 
 corner of Centre Street ; but she was not 
 there ; and he began to fear he might lose 
 her after all. He asked an apple-woman, 
 near by, where Maria was, and was told she 
 had gone to the corner of Broadway and 
 Vesey Street, under the awning where she 
 always went when it rained. 
 
 Mr. C now procured a policeman to 
 
 serve his warrant and arrest Maria. They 
 found her, about five o'clock in the after- 
 noon, at the corner of Broadway and Vesey 
 
 Street. Mr. C went up to her very 
 
 quietly, and said that he wanted her to go 
 with him to a good home he had found for 
 her. But when she saw the officer with his 
 star, (the badge of a New York policeman,) 
 
40 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 she at once became frightened, and said she 
 would not go. The officer told her she must 
 go, that they would not harm her ; and he 
 took hold of her arm. She began to cry and 
 scream with fear, thinking she was to be 
 taken to prison. She said she had not done 
 any thing wrong, for which she should go to 
 prison. She had only sold apples and candy ; 
 and this she repeated again and again. 
 
 Her screams and resistance in such a 
 public place drew a large crowd around 
 and produced a great commotion ; and all 
 inquired what the poor child had done, that 
 she should be taken as a thief. She appealed 
 to the multitude that she had done nothing ; 
 and for a few moments they seemed inclined 
 to rescue her from the officer. A large num- 
 ber of the crowd were Irish labourers ; and as 
 she was in great terror, she called to mind 
 what Mrs. Dougherty had said to awaken her 
 fears, and she cried out, " They are going to 
 take me away and make a Protestant of me !" 
 
 But the circumstances of her case were 
 
 explained to the bystanders by Mr. C 
 
 again and again, and finally they approved 
 of the proceeding, and told Maria she had 
 bettc go with the officer. 
 
Pt. Cheese man. 
 
 They took her as she was, with her basket on her arm. 
 
 p. 41. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 41 
 
 They took her just as she was, with her 
 basket on her arm, into a railroad car stand- 
 ing in front of the Astor House. She was 
 convulsed with sobs and trembling with 
 
 terror. While on their way, Mr. C tried 
 
 to calm her ; told her where she was going, 
 and that she would have a good home, 
 which she had wanted so long. But she 
 cried, and said she had done nothing wrong. 
 And all the people in the car gathered around 
 her, asking why she was arrested ? She at 
 length became somewhat reconciled, and 
 then she began to be troubled at leaving the 
 old woman so abruptly. She requested Mr. 
 
 C to take her basket, apples, and money 
 
 to the old woman, " Or she will think," said 
 Maria, " that I have stolen them and run 
 
 away." Mr. C promised to return them 
 
 that night. 
 
 On their arrival at the " Home" Maria was 
 committed to the care of her new guardians. 
 
 It was a strange home to her, and, child- 
 like, she began to be homesick ! Mr. 
 
 C and the policeman left her, to return 
 
 to the old woman with Maria's 'basket, 
 apples, and money. They made their way, 
 for the last time, up to the garret, and told 
 
42 
 
 MARIA CIIEESEM AN ; OR, 
 
 her that Maria had gone ; that the law had 
 provided a new home for her ; and that this 
 was done because she had ill-treated her. 
 The old woman was astonished at the intelli- 
 gence, and begged to have her back again 
 — promising to do well by her. But Mr. 
 
 C left the house, telling her it was too 
 
 late. The old woman followed him down 
 stairs into the street, and along the side- 
 walk, taking hold of his arm, beseeching 
 him only to tell her where Maria had gone. 
 
 But Mr. C was inexorable, and the 
 
 policeman only laughed at the old woman's 
 new-born affection for the child. She had 
 Uiken her last look at the poor child. 
 
 A neighbour, who had every opportunity 
 to know, stated that she scarcely ever went 
 out after this while she lived. She stayed in 
 her room, indulging her appetite for strong 
 drink, and cursed the Protestants until death 
 closed her mouth, which was some time 
 during the following summer. 
 
 Maria's sojourn at the u IIome" was very 
 short: she came there on a Saturday night ; 
 on the next Monday, they sent her and a 
 number of other girls, with one of the 
 officers of the institute, to the western part 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 43 
 
 of the State of New York, for the purpose 
 of obtaining homes for them in the country. 
 No place had been provided for Maria before 
 she left. One of the girls had been engaged 
 
 to Mrs. M , of Tonawanda. When the 
 
 company arrived there, Maria was left with 
 
 this girl at the house of Mrs. M for a 
 
 few days, while the lady who had accom- 
 panied them went to Niagara Falls. "When 
 
 the lady returned for Maria, Mrs. M 
 
 preferred Maria to the girl who was intended 
 for her. This arrangement was assented to; 
 so that, in the short space of one week, 
 Maria had left a home in the garret in the 
 city, had ended a life in the streets, and had 
 found a new home in a Christian family in 
 a quiet country town. Yes, now, for the first 
 time since she left England, she was in the 
 country, and saw the blooming trees, the 
 green fields, the running brooks, and the blue 
 mountains. She said, " Every thing looked 
 so beautiful !" and reminded her of the days 
 when she was in England with her grand- 
 mother. In the family of Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 M she was treated with great kindness. 
 
 She won their affection. 
 
 Mrs. M said, in one of her letters to 
 
44 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Maria's Mends in Jfew York, " It was sur- 
 prising that she had so few faults." She was 
 obedient, honest, conscientious, and, what is 
 too rare in children, she was perfectly truth- 
 ful. We do not mean to say that children 
 generally tell deliberate falsehoods, but there 
 is such a thing as suppressing a little of the 
 truth, or alloiving a person to misunderstand 
 us, or give a little colouring to our state- 
 ments. Would that all children were like the 
 great and good Washington, who could not 
 tell a lie ! 
 
 Nothing is more important than to culti- 
 vate the habit of perfect truthfulness, so that 
 we shall love truth, and breathe it in every 
 word, express it in every look, and think it 
 in every thought. Abhor lying, deceit, and 
 all equivocation ; strive against the habit of 
 deceit — for it is, with some persons, a habit 
 almost unconquerable. The Bible is very 
 full of instruction and warning on this sub- 
 ject: "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy 
 lips from speaking guile." " The lip of truth 
 shall be established forever, but a lying 
 tongue is but for a moment." " Lying lips are 
 an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal 
 truly are his delight." If you speak at all, 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 45 
 
 speak the truth, without fear or favour, to 
 high or low. It was this love of truth, per- 
 haps, more than any other thing, which 
 gained Maria so many friends wherever she 
 went. 
 
 And now we find the little " candy-girl" 
 at a good home. All the gentle influences 
 of a domestic life, like the genial sun of 
 spring, were now beaming upon her heart, 
 and were bringing forth there all those 
 tender plants of confidence, love, and joy 
 so natural and beautiful in the child. She 
 attended the daily school and Sunday-school 
 regularly. Her young heart had felt a long, 
 stern winter, which had gone far to stifle 
 these childlike emotions. ]STow, like a gar- 
 den in spring, they were all unfolding them- 
 selves in loveliness. 
 
 She mingled with children and engaged 
 in their sports, and began to show the viva- 
 city and joyousness of girlhood. It was a 
 new thing to her. She was born in the coun- 
 try, yet for years she had seen nothing of the 
 face of nature but the " Park," and heard 
 nothing but the ceaseless noise and hubbub 
 of a great city. Now she was among scenes 
 familiar to her earliest years. Who, that was 
 
46 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 born in the country, does not bless God for 
 it ? What youthful mind does not love its 
 beauties ? What young heart does not bow 
 in adoration to the God whose glories are 
 beaming everywhere ? The wide landscapes, 
 the majestic mountains, the quiet valleys, 
 the lakes and hills, are objects among which 
 the thoughts delight to rove — refreshing to 
 the man of care, and a solace to old age. 
 Happy the man who has been reared in the 
 country, and happy he who can rear his 
 children there ! " God made the country, 
 and man made the town." I should like to 
 stand on the Alps, to muse among the classic 
 ruins of Rome and Athens, to tread the 
 sacred scenes of Palestine ; but my heart 
 bounds at the thought of visiting my 
 early home in the country — the old house 
 under the elms, where I was born ; the hill- 
 top overlooking the river, where I have 
 watched the setting sun and the rising moon ; 
 the shady walk through the forest, winding 
 along by the little brook ; every old familiar 
 tree, and bank, and hedge, and rock, where 
 I have, so many hours, sat musing on the 
 life before me ; the churchyard, where lie 
 buried my father and my mother — these 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 47 
 
 scenes we love, and to tlxem we turn with 
 longing desire in manhood, and their 
 memory will be green even in old age. 
 Here >ve were born, and here would we die 
 and be gathered to our fathers. 
 
 "We beg pardon for such a disquisition 
 on nature ; but we hope to induce our young 
 city readers to seek her acquaintance in her 
 own quiet bowers; and our young country 
 readers to prize the blessings they enjoy, and 
 not turn their backs upon her face to seek 
 the dusty, noisy, dangerous walks of a city life. 
 
 Here Maria had her home for a short 
 summer. She was also under Christian in- 
 fluence in a family of prayer, where she was 
 instructed in religion. Her duties were 
 domestic. The family consisted of Mr. and 
 
 Mrs. M , and a little boy named Willie, 
 
 whom they had adopted. 
 
 Maria became much attached to "Willie, 
 who was a sickly child. It was her delight 
 to take him out under the trees, and to 
 amuse him with flowers. 
 
 Thus had the Lord provided for this little 
 orphan, and fulfilled his gracious promise — 
 
 ' ' When my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord 
 will take me up." 
 
48 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN ; OR, 
 
 "He shall judge tfre poor of the people: he shall save 
 the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the 
 oppressor." 
 
 "He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor 
 also, and him that hath no helper." 
 
 " He relieveth the fatherless and widow." 
 
 He had crowned the humble efforts of his 
 servants with success. The command is, 
 " Defend the poor and fatherless/' do justice 
 to the afflicted and needy : " deliver the 
 poor and needy." This had been done. 
 
 The friends of the poor " candy-girl" were 
 rewarded for their persevering effort ; and 
 who can tell what good they have done ? 
 " He that converteth a sinner from the error 
 of his ways shall save a soul from death and 
 hide a multitude of sins." "Blessed is he 
 that considereth the poor. The Lord will de- 
 liver him in time of trouble." 
 
 Miss M , Maria's first fervent friend, 
 
 continued to take an interest in her, and 
 even visited her during the summer at 
 Tonawanda. 
 
 Maria could now write letters, and their 
 correspondence was frequent. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 49 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE LOST FOUND. 
 
 After Maria had been for some weeks at 
 Tonawanda, the family in which she lived 
 began to question her about her early life. 
 They ascertained that she came from Sel- 
 linge, Kent county, England ; that her grand- 
 parents resided there when Maria left Eng- 
 land, and that they were then in good cir- 
 cumstances. But five or six years had elapsed 
 since she had left them ; and she had never 
 heard from them since, and had no expecta- 
 tion of hearing. 
 
 Mrs. M , with the fertile and practical 
 
 benevolence of a Christian woman, conceived 
 
 the thought of writing to the grandparents. 
 
 They were perhaps living still, and might be 
 
 able to do something for Maria. Mr, M 
 
 said it was of no use ; the letter would never 
 
 get there ; and if it did, it would not find her 
 
 grandparents. They were probably dead. 
 
 That it was a "woman's notion" to send 
 5 
 
50 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 across the Atlantic to find the grandmother 
 of a little beggar girl ! 
 
 Mrs. M was not by all this to be de- 
 terred from writing. It would do no harm, 
 at any rate. So she commenced a letter to 
 Maria's grandmother, giving a brief statement 
 of her life in this country. It seemed very 
 much like sending at random; but Maria 
 was now anxious that it should go. Some 
 strange hope possessed the child that good 
 would come of it. 
 
 Before it was finished, it was laid aside for 
 
 weeks and almost forgotten by Mrs. M , 
 
 so faint were her expectations of its being 
 of any avail. But the child's hopes were 
 awakened ; she could not forget the unfin- 
 ished letter; perhaps it might reach her 
 grandparents. So Mrs. M finally de- 
 termined to finish and send it. Maria 
 added a few lines to the letter, and' it was 
 directed to 
 
 Mr. Thomas Cheeseman } 
 Sellinge, 
 
 Kent County, 
 
 England. 
 
 and posted with scarcely a reasonable hope 
 that his aged eyes would ever peruse it. But 
 
See! The old man looks at it. 
 
 p. 51. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 51 
 
 Maria's dearest hopes followed that same 
 letter. It was the message of a young, sigh- 
 ing, outcast orphan from the place of her long 
 exile to her early home — to the hearts that 
 loved her once. It was committed to the 
 fickle ministry of the winds and the waves 
 which wafted it. Yet God, who rules the 
 winds and the waves, took care of the mes- 
 sage. 
 
 The poor child said, " I prayed every night 
 that it might reach them, and that they 
 might send for me." We ought to follow 
 that letter in its travels by stage-coach, rail- 
 road, through post-offices, upon steamboats, 
 along the rivers, over the ocean, through 
 England and her great metropolis, down 
 through Old Kent, until some messenger 
 takes it into the farmhouse of Mr. Cheese- 
 man, and presents it to a gray-headed old 
 man in small-clothes, with spectacles on his 
 nose, and an old woman sitting beside him. 
 See ! the old man looks at it, examines the 
 post-mark closely: "Why, it is from Ame- 
 rica ! What can it mean ? N~o one there 
 has any business with me !" 
 
 The thought, to be sure, darts through his 
 mind, that he once had a little grand-daugh- 
 
52 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 ter there ; but she must be dead long before 
 this. 
 
 From whom can it be? It is opened with 
 a trembling hand. It flashes out in the 
 first few lines that Maria is living. His 
 whole frame trembles. He cannot hold the 
 letter. "Thank God! Thank God!" he 
 exclaims. " She was dead and is alive 
 again; she was lost but is found." Now 
 the old lady tries her skill at reading the 
 letter, and with little better success ; but 
 amid sobs and tears at last the whole truth 
 comes out. The child whom they had 
 sought and prayed for, for years, and given 
 up for lost, was whispering her sighs into 
 their ears. She was safe, and as pure as 
 when, years ago, in her infancy, they had 
 given her a farewell kiss. 
 
 There was fervent thanksgiving in that 
 farmhouse that night. Mr. Cheeseman now 
 began to make his arrangements to have 
 Maria brought home to England. Mrs. 
 
 Cheeseman answered Mrs. M 's letter, 
 
 and wrote to Maria, and the return message 
 was committed to the post. This letter 
 was longer in its passage than it should 
 have been. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 53 
 
 While all this was taking place in Eng- 
 land, the little candy-girl was awaiting, in 
 great anxiety, some news to decide her fate. 
 
 An answer to her letter, if it came at all, 
 
 should come in less than thirty days from the 
 
 time it was sent. She says, " About the time 
 
 we expected it, I went down to the post-office 
 
 every day when Mr. M did not go ; but 
 
 no answer came in the thirty days. I kept 
 
 waiting, hoping it would come. I prayed 
 
 ever j night for it. But it did not come, and 
 
 I had almost given up all hopes of it. One 
 
 day, after school in the afternoon, I was at 
 
 home with Willie, and Mrs. M 's brother 
 
 came in and asked for her. She was not at 
 
 home, but he stayed about the house until 
 
 about tea-time, when she came in ; and then 
 
 he went up to her, after she took her bonnet 
 
 oft) and looked very funny, and said, £ Here is 
 
 something for you ;' and he handed her a 
 
 letter, and at the same time he looked at 
 
 me. Mrs. M— — took it and looked at the 
 
 outside, and then said, ' Why, Maria, this is for 
 
 you/ I began to tremble a little, and Mrs. 
 
 M said, 6 Why, how red you look!' I knew 
 
 it was from my friends. She opened it, and 
 
 read it aloud. Here is what she read : 
 5* 
 
54 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseman cannot find words to 
 
 express their thankfulness to Mr. and Mrs. M , 
 
 for having in part restored their long-lost grandchild. 
 It is the wish of us all that you would send her to 
 us, but in doing so we see the difficulty. W e shall 
 be greatly obliged to you, and will repa} T you, if pos- 
 sible, for all and every expense that may be incurred. 
 We should prefer her being sent to London, with an 
 advice from you to that effect, and as to a berth for 
 her, we will leave to your decision. 
 
 We will also thank you if you will write us the 
 name of the vessel she may come by, and also the 
 name you enter her in. My husband will remit 
 you the money in whatever way you may name; 
 either through our banker, who has agents in Ame- 
 rica, or other ways you may name. 
 
 With gratitude, I remain your obliged 
 
 Maria Cheeseman. 
 
 Barrow Hill, 
 
 Sellinge, near Ashford, 
 Kent, Old England. 
 
 Sellinge, Aug. 1, 1854. 
 My dear and long-lost grand-daughter : We have 
 this day, July 31st, received your letter; and praised 
 be the Lord, who has so miraculously preserved you 
 from the dangers of the wicked world ! And may 
 the Almighty Power send down his blessings on those 
 benevolent persons who have thus far sheltered and 
 fed you ! Your disposition will ever, I trust, lead you 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 55 
 
 to pray for their prosperity in this life and perfect hap- 
 piness in that which is to come, and ever to look on 
 them as the good Samaritans. It is the wish of your 
 grandfather that you return to him, if you like. He 
 has had many sleepless nights, not knowing where to 
 search for you, having wrote several letters to Ame- 
 rica, but none were answered. Your uncles and 
 aunts are all married and have children. Mrs. Pol- 
 lard has often inquired after you, and will, no doubly 
 be glad when I tell her of your welfare. So we all 
 will : and all desire our best love, with a kiss of af- 
 fection. And believe me, 
 
 Your affectionate grandmother, 
 
 M. Cheeseman. 
 
 I am now 72 years old. 
 
 God bless you ! 
 
 This was the long-expected letter ; and how 
 every word must have thrilled the heart of 
 Maria ! Every painful doubt had now dis- 
 appeared. Not only were her grandparents 
 living, but they still loved her, and their 
 hearts were still open to receive her. The 
 day after this letter was received, she wrote 
 to Miss M , in ]STew York, as follows : 
 
 My dear teacher: I sit down to thank you for 
 your kind letter. I thank you for the interest you 
 have taken in my welfare. I haven't missed but 
 
56 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 two Sabbaths since I commenced going. I often 
 think of the Sabbaths I spent in the streets of New 
 York. I have been to school eight weeks, and have 
 studied arithmetic, geography, spelling, and reading. 
 I have to-day received a letter from my grandmother, 
 that I have written to since I came here ; and I hope 
 to see my friends in England again. I am fond of 
 Willie, and very well pleased with my home. Miss 
 
 C said she would come to see us, but she has 
 
 not come yet. I thank you for those papers that 
 you offered to send me ; and I would like to hear 
 from you again. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Maria Cheeseman. 
 
 A new world had now dawned upon the 
 candy-girl. She was to return to England 
 as soon as her grandparents sent the neces- 
 sary funds. But a delay of some weeks was 
 occasioned by not receiving letters from 
 them. Through the letters of Maria and 
 
 Mrs. M , Mrs. Cheeseman had learned 
 
 of Maria's first teacher, and of her kindness 
 to the child ; and to her Mrs. Cheeseman 
 sent twenty-five pounds (one hundred and 
 twenty-five dollars) to pay Maria's passage 
 back to England. 
 
 The money was enclosed in a letter, of 
 which the following is a copy : 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 57 
 
 N Sellinge, Oct, 19, 1854. 
 
 My dear and unknown friend : With this, I send 
 the money whereby you will be enabled to com- 
 plete that work it has pleased the all-sufficient God 
 to inspire you to commence — that of restoring an 
 orphan to her relatives and home. Verily, the Lord 
 omnipotent reigneth; and praised be his holy name 
 for causing the hearts of strangers to sympathize for 
 an orphan and destitute child of affliction ! We are 
 at a loss to express our thankfulness for so beneficent 
 an act; and may the Lord pour down his gracious 
 blessing upon those most truly Christian persons 
 who possess that virtue and charity which, we read, 
 survives the wreck of the world, outlives time itself, 
 and will be forever the work of the servants of God ! 
 I have taken the liberty of sending the money to 
 you, as, from the tenour of your letter, we infer that 
 
 probably Mr. and Mrs. M may have left Tona- 
 
 wanda. Mr. M speaks of the great expense 
 
 they have been put to in clothing and getting the 
 dear girl to New York. We are willing and de- 
 sirous that you should compensate them according to 
 your idea of the case. We wish to avoid all super- 
 fluous expenses, being only in the middle class of 
 society — domestic farmers ) and if you, dear madam, 
 will do, or cause to be done, that of procuring a 
 berth in a first-class cabin, for Maria's return to 
 England, also to see that she has suitable clothes 
 for her voyage, with sufficient necessaries in the 
 
58 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 clothing department, and see her on board, making 
 an agreement with the captain — a written one is 
 the best — that there may not be any thing unplea- 
 sant when she arrives in England, — you will greatly 
 oblige us. We also shall be thankful if you will write 
 us of her departure from you, and to what port the 
 vessel will be bound, and the expected time of her 
 arrival in England. We should prefer London; and 
 should you, dear madam, at any time, visit England, 
 I should be proud to receive you at our domestic 
 home, Barrow Hill Farm, Sellinge, near Ashford, 
 Kent — distant from London seventy-two miles, and 
 close to the Westernhanger and Wyth station, 
 South-Eastern Railway. 
 
 The cause of my delay in writing has been that we 
 have not been able to get an order to have the money 
 transferred to you — there are so many difficulties 
 which we were not aware of — and we could not get 
 any information in London what the expenses were 
 likely to be from x\merica. There does not appear 
 to be any specific terms ; but the bargain must be 
 made, in the best manner possible, with the captain. 
 The expenditure of the money we leave to you; and 
 
 should Mr. M accompany her to New York, of 
 
 course you will be pleased to remunerate him accord- 
 ing to your ideas; and should the sum sent be not 
 sufficient, we will remit you more. We have friends 
 in New York. (This letter states their address and 
 residence.) If you, doubting our veracity, will take 
 
TIIE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 59 
 
 the trouble to inquire, they will satisfy you of our 
 responsibility. This gentleman saw Maria at our 
 request, but, most probably, was at a loss how to get 
 possession of her, although his heart yearned to do 
 so. After her dear mother's death, we lost sight of 
 her altogether : and we knew that her step-father 
 had deserted her. We have very many good insti- 
 tutions in England — London particularly. Your's 
 is called the Home of the Friendless, our's the 
 Orphan Asylum. To you, my dear madam, we 
 beg our best thanks, best regards; and to Mr. and 
 
 Mrs. M our thankfulness for all their kind 
 
 exertions; and to dear Maria my best love, with a 
 hope she will have a pleasant voyage. 
 Your's respectfully, 
 
 Maria Cheeseman. 
 
 This letter arrived in the early part of 
 November. It was not convenient to bring 
 Maria at once to New York, and she re- 
 mained at Tonawanda until the first of the 
 following January, when she was brought 
 to New York by the ladies of the Home for 
 the Friendless, who were her legal guardians. 
 
 Here she became the guest of Miss M , 
 
 who held the funds to pay her outfit and 
 passage back to England. She was so 
 changed when she returned, that her friends 
 hardly knew her. She had become fair and 
 
60 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 ruddy, and that careworn, old look which 
 she once had, had given way to a happy, 
 childlike face. She had become stout and 
 strong. Her friends in New York desired 
 she should sail in a London packet in the 
 first w r eek in January. But it became neces- 
 sary to prepare her some clothing ; and now 
 Maria, for the first time, began to see New 
 York as it is. 
 
 Heretofore she had only been a streets 
 girl, carrying her basket from her home to 
 the Park. Never had she been within a 
 respectable house or among respectable 
 people. Now she went shopping with Miss 
 
 M . But her small purchases were soon 
 
 made. Miss M and Maria were very 
 
 busy during the whole of the first week in 
 January in making up her clothing; and 
 Maria worked from morning till night. 
 She sewed with great facility, and better 
 than most young girls ; for she had had a 
 long apprenticeship in the art of making 
 shirts for old Mrs. Dougherty, during the long 
 winter evenings in the garret. 
 
 But the ship " American Congress," in 
 which she was to sail, was detained from 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 61 
 
 day to day until Friday the 12th. This 
 delay was trying to Maria's patience, for 
 she was a good deal excited, and very de- 
 sirous to depart; and it w T as now nearly 
 four months since she had heard the call of 
 her aged grandparents to her to return. 
 During the last week of her stay in New 
 York, she visited different parts of the city. 
 She never had been above Chambers Street, 
 during the years she was in New York, 
 
 until Mr. C and the policeman took 
 
 her. She was always obliged to work, so 
 that she could not go ; and she had never 
 seen any park in New York but the City 
 Hall Park. 
 
 On the second Sabbath of January, she 
 paid a visit to the Reade Street Sunday- 
 school. It was just one year since she first 
 went there — an eventful year to her. She 
 also paid a visit to the Roosevelt School ; 
 and, on her way back, she went with her 
 teacher to the old room in the garret, where 
 she so long lived with Mrs. Dougherty. A 
 neighbour, and one of her early friends, told 
 her the old woman died during the summer, 
 and that she had money in the bank, which 
 her son had taken out and squandered. He 
 
62 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 said he was very glad Maria had found her 
 friends. 
 
 Here she was again, in the garret where 
 she had passed so many years of sorrow — 
 where she had been whipped and abused — 
 where she had worked so hard during the 
 winter evenings — where she had prayed for 
 deliverance — and w T here she never heard a 
 kind word. It was all over now, and it 
 seemed like a dream. 
 
 Some of our inquisitive young readers 
 may be inclined to ask, Who is this little can- 
 dy-girl of whom you are telling us ? Where 
 did she come from? What was her early 
 life ? Why do you begin in the middle to 
 tell a story ? Why not begin at the begin- 
 ning? 
 
 We answer that we are not making a story, 
 but relating facts ; that every incident, even 
 the most trifling, in this simple narrative, is 
 true. It is written that it may awaken an 
 interest in hundreds and thousands of cases 
 of poor, labouring, suffering, yet deserving 
 children, whom we daily meet in our walks 
 through this city. We introduce our little 
 candy-girl as we found her toiling through 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 63 
 
 the streets of New York, seven days in the 
 week, painfully earning her subsistence. 
 
 During the last few days of her stay in 
 New York the incidents of her early life 
 were drawn out. We must allow her to tell 
 her history in her own way. We feel certain 
 that all she said is true. There was a can- 
 dour and diffidence about her statements 
 which could not fail to awaken the fullest 
 confidence. Although she spoke of things 
 which seemed at first almost to have faded 
 from her memory, yet there was intelligence 
 and •coherence in her statements. She must 
 now be her own historian. 
 
64 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 maria's story. 
 
 " Since T came to America, I have been 
 sick so much, and worked so hard, and been 
 scolded at so much, that I have kind of for- 
 gotten almost all I used to do and all I 
 learned. 
 
 " My father died when I was a few days 
 old, as I have heard my mother say. My 
 mother was the daughter of Mr. Cheeseman, 
 who lived at Sellinge, Kent county, England. 
 
 "I had a twin-brother. His name was 
 John. The first that I can remember is, that 
 I and my brother John were living with an 
 aunt — a sister of my mother — at a place in 
 Sussex, called Lewes. I guess I was then 
 about five*or six years old. My mother did 
 not live with us, then. She had gone to be a 
 ladies' maid in a family by the name of Lloyd. 
 This family were rich people, and went to 
 iive in Ireland in the summer, but lived in 
 Brighton, near London, in the winter." 
 
 "Did you go to school at Lewes ?" 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 65 
 
 " Oil yes ; I went to school every day, to a 
 Miss Dalton. I was learning to read and 
 write at her school. Write — yon know — lines 
 in books. It was rather queer writing, I 
 guess. Johnny did not go to the same school 
 with me. I remember he was pale and had 
 something the matter with his head. And 
 the boys used to trouble him ; so my aunt 
 sent him to a smaller school. Lewes was a 
 large place. I believe there was a wide street 
 with large houses and trees on each side." 
 
 "Did you ever go to a Sunday-school 
 there?" 
 
 " Oh yes. I went every Sunday, and had 
 the same teacher as we had in the day-school. 
 We used to go to church, too. It was called 
 or sounded like < All Saints/ My mother 
 used to come often from Brighton to see us, 
 and we were happy then, I suppose. 
 
 "The next I remember is, that my aunt 
 took me to Sellinge, in Kent, near Ashford, 
 but my brother remained at Lewes with my 
 aunt. I remember we went on a railroad. 
 My grandfather, Thomas Cheeseman, and his 
 wife, Maria Cheeseman, lived there. My 
 grandfather was a farmer ; I know I felt glad 
 to go to my grandmother, for she was well 
 
66 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 off , and I liked to go to the country, it was 
 so pleasant, and my grandmother was kind 
 to me. I remember there was a high hill, a 
 little way from the house, called Barrow Hill. 
 But the house was on a level street, all sur- 
 rounded by flat, green meadows. It was a 
 square white house, two stories high. I don't 
 know whether it was brick or wood. I re- 
 member, when we walked heavy on the floors, 
 they would kind of shake. Over the street 
 door there was a porch ; and honeysuckles 
 and some other flowers and vines used to run 
 all over it, and hang down all round it. The 
 house had five rooms in it. They were on 
 each side of a hall ; and there was behind the 
 house, two or three steps going down, a little 
 brick wash-house, we called it. 
 
 There was a flower-garden in front of the 
 house, full of vines and flowers, which my 
 grandmother and I used to take care o£ 
 And at the side of the house there was a 
 vegetable-garden, and fruit-trees. We had 
 two peach-trees, but not so many peaches 
 as we have here. We had strawberries, 
 raspberries, gooseberries, currants, cherries; 
 and we had one fig-tree. There were 
 smooth meadows of grass, back of the 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 67 
 
 house, and there were sheep in it. There 
 was a brook running through the meadows, 
 which they called the river. All along the 
 river there were trees, and willows which 
 hung down over the water. 
 
 "My grandfather used to raise a good many 
 hops and vegetables for market, which they 
 sold at Ashford. Some of my uncles lived 
 with my grandfather, and helped him. I 
 remember my grandfather. He was rather 
 a short man and stout, with grayish hair, 
 and always looked very kind. It was spring, 
 I know, when I went to live with my grand- 
 mother, for, I remember, she sent me out 
 to pick primroses and other flowers — I can't 
 think of all the names. I used to pick them 
 every morning, and put them in flower-pots 
 on the mantel-piece in the parlour. I used 
 to love the flowers, they were so sweet and 
 pretty ; and we always had them around in 
 the room. 
 
 " I think I lived here with my grandmother 
 about two years. She was very kind to me. 
 I did not go to school, but she taught me 
 every day in the forenoon. She used to give 
 lessons in reading. They were pretty hard. 
 She would not tell me one of the words, but 
 
68 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAK; OR, 
 
 made nae find theni out by saying the letters- 
 over." 
 
 " Yon mean spelling out the words." 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Why, did you think that hard ?" 
 
 "It seemed pretty hard to me then — I was 
 so little. After a while, I used to cypher, too ; 
 and I wrote in a book, every day, two of those 
 things — I forget what you call them." 
 
 " You mean copies, don't you ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, that's it — lines on the top to 
 write after. I used to get all these lessons 
 in the forenoon, and recite to my grandmo- 
 ther in the afternoon. I sewed a part of the 
 time, and then went out to play in the yard 
 or in the meadow where the sheep were. I 
 recollect I used to play with one little girl — 
 I don't remember her name ; — but she used 
 to come very often in the afternoon, and we 
 would go into the meadows and get butter- 
 cups and daisies. They used to grow there 
 all around the fields. Sometimes we would 
 go along by the river, but we were pretty 
 careful not to go too near, for we might fall 
 in. Sometimes we went up on the hill 
 where my grandfather had a hop-garden, 
 and got some kind of grass which grew 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 69 
 
 there. It was glossy, and would be shaking 
 all the time, and looked very pretty. They 
 called it, there, toddle-grass, or something 
 like that. My grandmother used to put it 
 in glasses on the mantel-piece; and she 
 very often sent me for it My grandfather 
 raised a good many hops, which he sold. I 
 used to like living there — every thing looked 
 so pretty in the country." 
 
 Thus this little child — so soon to be a 
 wanderer and an x outcast in a foreign land, 
 and in the midst of a great city— was gain- 
 ing pure and elevating impressions of the 
 glorious works of the Creator. A love of 
 the beautiful was here implanted in her 
 mind, and nature was painting most charm- 
 ing scenes on her memory, which were, 
 in after years, to be a solace to her. 
 What, beside religion, so elevates the soul, 
 awakens and cherishes pure and noble 
 thoughts, as the contemplation of nature in 
 her rural beauty, grandeur, and sublimity ? 
 This influence could be plainly traced on 
 the mind of this child. 
 
 Happy they whose early associations are 
 with the country scenes — who in childhood 
 loved 
 
70 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 " The rocks and rills, 
 The woods and lofty hills." 
 
 But we must let Maria proceed in her 
 answers to the numerous questions which 
 were put to her, and which awakened all her 
 latent memories of early clays. As she called 
 to mind these scenes, the pictures would 
 come up fresh and new to her recollection, 
 and spread a glow of sunshine over her face. 
 
 " My grandmother taught me to pray 
 every night when I went to bed. She 
 sometimes took me up stairs to bed, and 
 sometimes my aunt did. But I always 
 kneeled down at the foot of the bed and 
 said the Lord's prayer. She taught me 
 another prayer, but I have forgotten it, — I 
 have been sick so much in the hospital 
 since I came to this country ! But I never 
 forgot the Lord's prayer; and I have always 
 said it at night, while I lived w T ith Mrs, 
 Dougherty, but not in the morning, for she 
 would not give me time to say it. When we 
 got up in the morning, we did not all say 
 our prayers together, as you do here ; but 
 each one said their prayers in their own room. 
 But we used to read the Bible together. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 71 
 
 "I had a book my grandmother gave me, 
 with a black cover, which I studied and read, 
 and which had something for every day in 
 the year in it ; I think they called it 6 col- 
 lect,' or some such name. I used to take 
 it to church with me. I kept this book 
 until I came to this country, when it was 
 sold by my step-father, with all my other 
 things. I always went to church. My 
 grandmother went only in the morning. 
 
 " I used to learn a good many hymns ; but 
 I have forgotten them — it was so long ago. 
 I have heard them sing one here, in the Sun- 
 day-school, which I used to know, but I can't 
 remember it now." 
 
 " Can't you remember any of the words ?" 
 
 "Well, there was something about 
 6 bursting bonds,' or ' chains.'* My grand- 
 
 * Reference is probably made to Dr. Watts's version of 
 the seventeenth psalm, — so familiar in onr religious assem- 
 blies. The original version begins with the line, 
 
 " Lord, I am thine, but thou wilt prove," &e. 
 
 In several of our American collections, the first two verses 
 are omitted, and the first line of the third verse is, 
 
 "What sinners value, I resign;" 
 
 and the last verse, and that which seems to have made the 
 deepest impression on Maria's mind, is — 
 
 4< My flesh shall slumber in the ground 
 Till the last trumpet's joyful sound; 
 Then burst the chains with sweet surprise, 
 And in my Saviour's image rise.'* 
 
72 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 mother used to go often to Ashford to mar- 
 ket, and then she would bring me home 
 some nice things. She once bought me a 
 wax doll, and I kept it till some one on 
 the ship, when I came over, sat on it 
 and crushed it. At another time, she 
 bought me a Bible and some nice books. 
 She once bought me a drawing-book, for 
 drawing pictures of birds and such things ; 
 and I could draw a good many pictures 
 on it. 
 
 " My mother bought me a work-box, once, 
 which I liked very much. All these things 
 I kept until I got to America, but they all 
 went, with the rest of my things, after my 
 mother died. I felt the worst about losing 
 my drawing-slate and my Bible. 
 
 " My grandmother taught me to sew marks 
 on samplers, — you know, — mark letters and 
 names; and, just in the way as they make 
 book-marks, I could make a butterfly, and 
 birds in a cage, and other things. I had a 
 large sampler full of such marks. This was 
 sold too, with my other things." 
 
 So pleasantly passed the spring-time of 
 Maria's life — that happy period of child- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 7S 
 
 hood when all is joy and sunshine and 
 hope. How tenderly she was nurtured and 
 taught by parental affection ! 
 
 The genial influence of love, descending 
 like dew upon her childlike heart, awakened 
 all the gentler sympathies of her sex and of 
 her nature. She was dependent, confiding, 
 full of affection and responsive sympathies 
 — delicate plants of early blossom found in 
 the heart of the gently-nurtured, and there 
 so beautiful to behold. How terrible to see 
 them wither before the chilling winds of 
 adversity, neglect and want ! 
 
 It is easy, from these few gleanings of 
 Maria's personal history, to obtain a correct 
 delineation of her character. 
 
 She was an amiable, affectionate, and con- 
 fiding child. She had a happy home in old 
 England, a beautiful home — a home of plenty 
 — a home in the hearts of those who loved 
 her. The flowers were her companions. 
 She saw the sunset, and the painted clouds, 
 and the green fields, and the flowing river, 
 and she loved them all. All these sacred 
 influences of home and of nature were ele- 
 vating to her thoughts, and awakened a 
 !ove for the pure, the beautiful,. and the true*. 
 
74 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Thus was a kind Providence fortifying her 
 young heart for the trials and temptations 
 through which she was soon to pass. 
 
 But the most effectual panoply for this 
 little pilgrim will be found in her Christian 
 nurture. She was taught to pray — to go to 
 Christ with her sorrows. " She never for- 
 got to pray !" 
 
 This is always a beautiful sight — a child 
 kneeling by its mother in prayer to the 
 Almighty. But oh ! how touching is it to 
 see a little orphan, through the whole course 
 •of her wanderings, every night lifting up 
 her feeble voice in prayer to the God of the 
 fatherless! See her aloue in that emigrant 
 hospital, surrounded by the sick and dying, 
 stretched on a bed of sickness, offering up 
 in the darkness her simple prayer. See her 
 in that dark cellar — fatherless, motherless, 
 brotherless — pouring out her sorrows from 
 that miserable pallet. Hear her prayer in 
 that miserable garret, stretching her weary, 
 half-frozen limbs to rest after the toil of a 
 wintry day. From that young heart there 
 went up the prayer, every night, " Lead as 
 not into temptation; but deliver us from 
 *evil." And does He listen ? Was Tie there 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 75 
 
 in the hospital — the cellar — the garret — to 
 hear the cry of this little one? Does He 
 who listens to the choirs of heaven, — that 
 innumerable throng of saints and angels, — 
 does he hear thy voice, little orphan child ? 
 Yes, he hears thy feeble cry in heaven, his 
 holy dwelling-place. He bends his ear over 
 thy suffering couch, and catches the faintest 
 accents of thy lips. He whispers in thine 
 ear, " I will never leave thee nor forsake 
 thee/' " When thy father and mother for- 
 sake thee, then the Lord will take thee up." 
 " He will preserve thee from all evil." " He 
 will preserve thy soul." 
 - Let no Christian parent or teacher think 
 it of little consequence to teach a little child 
 to pray. It keeps the Saviour before the 
 soul. It awakens a thousand tender emo- 
 tions, and early associations of a mother, of a 
 home, of days of innocence, which may lead 
 to convictions of sin, and, by the aid of the 
 Holy Spirit, to true repentance. 
 
 Many a hardened sinner has wept to 
 think of the time when he used to kneel by 
 his mother's knees and say his prayers. He 
 feels again her soft hand upon his head, her 
 kiss upon his brow, and perhaps her warm 
 
76 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 tears upon his cheek. Though she is a 
 saint in heaven, her presence seems to be 
 with him again, pleading with him to make 
 her God his God. Blessed is the memory 
 of the man, though unknown 'to fame, who 
 wrote that little child's prayer — 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
 If I should die before I wake, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to take." 
 
 How many thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands of little children have, at their mothers' 
 knees, uttered this prayer, and in its simple 
 language first learned to speak to their Lord, 
 and to trust in their God ! How many mil- 
 lions, to the end of time, will begin their 
 communion with heaven with this simple 
 petition ! How often has it been uttered 
 with earnestness and faith, and been heard 
 and answered in heaven ! 
 
 Prayer is the language of children. Blessed 
 be our most holy Saviour, who has taught us 
 all to pray as children, and put into our 
 mouths those sweet words : " Our Father, 
 who art in heaven. " Blessed be God, who 
 has allowed us this solace in our pilgrimage, 
 this glimpse of the heavenly fields from the 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 77 
 
 sorrowful vales of this life — this ascending 
 of the human soul, burdened with its joys 
 and thanksgiving, its fears, sorrows, and de- 
 sires, to its reconciled God, to return again 
 — baptized in- the light of heaven — laden with 
 hope, courage, confidence, and love. Such 
 is the privilege of prayer — heaven's boon to 
 mortals, most largely vouchsafed to the lowly, 
 the suffering, and the contrite. 
 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER V.* 
 
 THE FAREWELL. 
 
 Maria had spent two happy years with her 
 grandmother on the farm, and, according to 
 her recollection, she was then about eight 
 years old. She says : 
 
 "I think it was in the spring, my mother 
 married a man by the name of Golden, who 
 was a coachman in the same family where 
 my mother was lady's-maid. My mother 
 sent word to my grandmother, very soon 
 after she w r as married, that she was going to 
 America; and that she wished to take me 
 and Johnny, who was living at Lewes, with 
 my aunt. I felt very sorry to leave my grand- 
 mother, but I had to go with my mother. I 
 loved my mother, and always wanted to live 
 with her ; and this made me more willing to 
 go: and everybody then thought it was such 
 a fine thing to go to America. They said 
 we should have every thing we wanted, and 
 be better off there, and that there were no 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 79 
 
 poor people there. I thought we should 
 have a nice house to live in, in the country, 
 when we got there ; and that I should Jive 
 with my mother and Johnny, and I thought 
 this would be very pleasant. 
 
 "My grandmother made me up a good 
 many clothes — some nice ones — a trunk full. 
 I had a Bible and some nice books, my dolls 
 and playthings, my work-box and drawing- 
 slate. We were to meet my mother and my 
 brother in London, and start together. 
 
 "My grandmother and aunt took me to 
 London. I remember we went by a rail- 
 road, and there we found my brother, with 
 another aunt, who had come up from Sussex 
 with him. We were to meet my mother 
 there the same day, but she did not come. 
 We looked about London all day for her, 
 but could not find her. We stayed with a 
 friend of my grandmother's there two days 
 before she came. 
 
 "At last my mother came with my step- 
 father. I had never seen him before. He 
 took my mother and John and me to a 
 boarding-house one night. My grandmother 
 did not like my step-father because he got 
 drunk the first night he was there. My 
 
80 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN ; OR, 
 
 mother felt badly, and cried all night. But 
 he tried to make me like him, for the first 
 afternoon he came, he went out and brought 
 Johnny and me some cakes. 
 
 "The next day we went in the cars to 
 Liverpool. My grandmother was sorry for 
 me to go. She kissed me good-by, and then 
 stood and looked at us till the cars were out 
 of sight of her. I felt very badly to leave my 
 grandmother, for she was always good to me, 
 and I did not like my step-father. 
 
 "I don't remember much of the journey 
 to Liverpool ; but when we came there, the 
 ship we were going in had sailed, and we 
 had to wait for another, which was going in 
 about a week. We stayed in a boarding-house 
 during this week. I was not much home-sick 
 then, for we were most of the time going 
 about the docks seeing the ships. I had 
 never seen a ship before, and I did not know 
 what to make of them at first, they looked 
 so strange. We sailed in the ship Catharine 
 from Liverpool to New York. I think we 
 must have sailed in the spring, early, and I 
 think it was about five or six years ago. 
 
 "We had a good many things with us. 
 My mother had a great many clothes in her 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 81 
 
 trunks, a gold watch, and some jewelry and 
 books. I don't remember very much about 
 the voyage. I was sick for the first week, 
 and I longed to go back to England, but 
 every one else wanted to get to New York. 
 They thought when they once got there they 
 should have no more trouble. They thought 
 it the finest place in the world ; and they 
 kept talking about getting to New York all 
 the time. They said they wanted to see what 
 kind of people the Yankees were. They 
 thought them very droll people. 
 
 " We were six weeks and three days on the 
 passage, and we were all tired, and wanted to 
 get to land. When we came near to the har- 
 bour of New York, I remember a pilot came 
 on board, and the people said he was a Yan- 
 kee, and I ran and told my mother I had seen 
 a Yankee. But I didn't see that he was very 
 different from other people. When we came up 
 the harbour, I remember it was dreadful hot. 
 
 " When we got to the dock, we saw all 
 sorts of people crowding around, and they 
 asked us to go to their boarding-house. The 
 cook on board the ship had given us a card 
 to a boarding-house, and we agreed to go 
 where he told us. We found the people ready 
 
82 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 to take our baggage on the wharf, and we 
 supposed we were going to a nice place. We 
 landed in South Street, I think, somewhere 
 near Beekman Street, and we went not far 
 to the boarding-house, which was in Cherry 
 Street. It was not a good place, and mother 
 did not like it. After they got us there they 
 charged very high — a shilling a meal for each 
 of us. They sold liquor there all the time, 
 and played cards all night in the bar-room. 
 We had one room by ourselves up-stairs ; but 
 my step-father stayed down in the bar-room 
 till late at night, and sometimes all night — 
 drinking and playing cards. My mother 
 could not get him up to her room. Some- 
 times he would not come up for the whole 
 day and night. He got drunk almost every 
 day, and they soon got all his money away 
 from him, but mother had some little money 
 besides. 
 
 " My mother did not like the place, and 
 she tried to get away. She felt very badly 
 and cried sometimes, and said she was sorry 
 she had ever left England. After staying 
 in the boarding-house a week or two, she 
 persuaded my step-father to go out and hire 
 rooms, for she wanted to get away. He 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 83 
 
 went out, and after a while came back and 
 said he had got a nice place. "We thought 
 it must be a nice house ; so we went to see it. 
 It was at No. — , Cherry Street. We thought 
 it would be some light upper rooms, and very 
 pleasant ; but when we got there, mother was 
 disappointed to find that he had hired two 
 rooms down in a basement, (we call them 
 cellars in England,) where it was dark and 
 did not look pleasant. I never saw such a 
 place to live in before. We did not want 
 to go there, but mother could not help it, for 
 she had but little money, and she wanted. to 
 get away from the boarding-house. So we 
 moved all our things there, and began to 
 keep house. 
 
 " There was a store over our rooms. The 
 steps down from the street were steep. My 
 mother always looked sad and unhappy after 
 this. She did not tell me much about her 
 feelings ; but I could see she felt badly, for 
 she had not been used to living so, and she 
 did not expect to live so when she got to 
 America. And my step-father was away 
 almost all the time, drinking in the shops 
 and stores. He said he tried to find work, 
 but could not get it. He soon went to 
 
84 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Philaclelpliia to get work ; and after lie had 
 been there some time, he wrote to my mo- 
 ther that he could not get work, and that he 
 wanted her to send him some *money. But 
 she had no money to send him ; for she 
 needed all the money for ourselves. 
 
 "My mother had to work hard to get enough 
 to live on and pay the rent. She got caps to 
 make of a Jew in Mott Street, and I used to 
 go up after them for my mother. She worked 
 very hard, but she was sick, and looked pale 
 and thin. And my brother Johnny was always 
 sick after we came to the basement. His 
 legs swelled badly in the hot weather, and 
 he hardly could stand on them. He used to 
 be sulky, and go up and sit on the steps of 
 the store in the sun. Sometimes the man in 
 the store would not let him stay there, and 
 would drive him down into the basement 
 During this summer my mother kept getting 
 worse, and she was not able to earn so much 
 by sewing as before. 
 
 " My step-father did not do any thing to 
 help her. He came back from Philadelphia 
 in a few weeks ; but he spent most of his 
 time away from home, in the stores and 
 drinking shops around there. My mother 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 85 
 
 had to earn all the money to support lis ; 
 when her money was gone, she began to 
 pawn her best things. She pawned her 
 watch, and then a plaid dress, then a scarf, 
 then a satin scarf and shawl, and almost all 
 her nice clothes, until almost every thing 
 she had was gone. She expected to get 
 them out again when she got money ; but 
 she never got them back. She had a few 
 nice things which she djd not pawn. She 
 one day took out of a box a breast-pin and 
 some rings ; and she said she did not expect 
 ever to wear them, but they would do for 
 me some time, but I never saw them again. 
 She seemed sick and unhappy. She did 
 not find it here, in this country, as she had 
 expected. Johnny was sick, and my step- 
 father was often drunk, and getting all the 
 money he could from my mother. She 
 would often cry w T hen we were alone in the 
 evening, and I would cry too. 
 
 " I helped my mother a little. I went 
 after the caps for her to make, and took 
 them back again to the Jew when they 
 were finished. I think my mother was a 
 good woman, for she used to read the 
 Bible with me every day ; and she taught 
 
86 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAX; OR, 
 
 me to pray, and prayed with me even- 
 night. 
 
 " After we had been in Cherry Street 
 about six months, I should think, a woman 
 came to live in the house, overhead, who 
 had the ship-fever, and Johnny took it. 
 He kept getting worse and worse, and the 
 people said he ought to go to the hospital. 
 
 " The people in the house wanted to get 
 him away. He felt.very badly, and did not 
 want to go away from his mother. But 
 they told him he would get well if he went 
 there; and they kept talking to him, and 
 telling him he must go, and then he said 
 he would go. He had to go up to the City 
 Hall to get a permit to go to Ward's Island. 
 The man who kept the store took him upon 
 his dray, and I went with him. Mother was 
 so sick she could not go. Johnny never saw 
 his mother after this. 
 
 " When we got to the City Hall, we had to 
 stay a long time waiting, with a great many 
 more, to find out whether he could go. I sat 
 witli him on the bench and tried to comfort 
 him. He did not mind much — he was bo 
 sick. When they got ready to go, they put 
 him into a long, covered wagon, with seats 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 87 
 
 on each side, with a great many more who 
 were going up. I stayed to see them drive 
 off. He went all alone, for he did not know 
 anybody who went with him. 
 
 "He was then, I suppose, eight or nine 
 years old. I felt sorry to have him go off 
 all alone so, but I couldn't help it. His 
 limbs were swollen very badly, and so was 
 his head ; and he looked sick and tired, as 
 if he did not care for any thing. But I ex- 
 pected he would get well and come home 
 again, and that we should live together once 
 more." 
 
 Thus early did Maria begin to taste the 
 bitter woes of an emigrant life. Her young 
 heart, which had known no sorrow, now 
 began to suffer. A few months before, she 
 was in a home of plenty and happiness. 
 Now, disappointment, sickness, and poverty 
 were her portion! No more pleasant ram- 
 bles through the sweet fields — no more 
 flowers — no gazing or watching the beauti- 
 ful clouds or the soft blue sky. No more 
 singing of birds at early morning — no more 
 lessons from a loved grandmother's lips. 
 No more access to that little chamber where 
 
88 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMANJ OR, 
 
 she so often kneeled beside her little white 
 bed. Other sounds greet her ears — other 
 sights now meet her eyes! 
 
 How sad are the sorrows of the poor emi- 
 grant — especially of the wife or daughter! 
 First comes the sad disappointment. They 
 have imagined that they are coming to a 
 sort of earthly paradise, where no want will 
 ever be known. But the moment they put 
 their feet on our shore the delusion van- 
 ishes. If they are not left houseless and 
 friendless on the docks, their first experience 
 is with the emigrant runners. Then come 
 the miseries of the emigrant boarding- 
 houses, which are often the filthy haunts of 
 infamy, and too generally filled with induce- 
 ments to drunkenness and gambling. There 
 they are often plundered of all their slender 
 means, and perhaps of all virtue and princi- 
 ple. Then comes a home in some miserable 
 street : men, women, and children crowded 
 together, breathing the fetid air of one or 
 two apartments in a basement. Then the 
 search for work — travelling wearily day 
 after day — no work to be found, unless the 
 most menial, and often none at all. 
 
 Disappointed, poverty-stricken, and dis- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 89 
 
 heartened, a stranger in a strange land, the 
 poor emigrant is now almost ruined. He is 
 burdened with a family, with no means to 
 remove from the over-crowded city. 
 
 Disappointment makes him desperate, 
 and he becomes a victim of intemperance. 
 Now the wife and children begin their toil 
 by sewing and begging. They become 
 paupers, — perhaps criminals. Self-respect 
 is gone. They soon become morally and 
 physically debased, and so they live on, in 
 poverty and vice, until the pestilence over- 
 takes them, and they pass away to the pau- 
 per's grave ! Such is the course of thousands 
 and tens of thousands who were respectable 
 persons when they came to this country, 
 with good habits and associations, industri- 
 ous and honest. They may be seeking a 
 better heritage foi their children ; but when 
 they settle in our great cities, they come to 
 almost certain ruin. 
 
 Should the care of this mighty throng of 
 foreigners landing on our shores be left to 
 the civil authorities ? Why should we not 
 have benevolent Christian associations on 
 a large scale, labouring for the moral and 
 physical condition of the emigrants; meet- 
 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 ing them on our docks, affording them pro- 
 tection, warning them to go at once to the 
 country, and to shun the crowded streets of 
 our cities as they value health, happiness, or 
 life ? Let them be directed to our wide, un- 
 cultivated Western regions, where they can 
 provide homes for themselves and their little 
 ones. 
 
 We have millions of acres of land — the 
 finest in the world — to be had for a mere 
 nominal price, inviting cultivation, and re- 
 paying the labourer a hundred-fold for his 
 honourable toil ; while in our cities, swarm- 
 ing thousands are starving, clamouring in 
 vain for labour, even for the most menial 
 service. 
 
 Onr's is the land of freedom and plenty, 
 education and morality ; and yet it is the 
 land of destruction to many a poor emigrant 
 morally and physically. The reason is, 
 that they settle in our great cities, where 
 they and their children become demoralized 
 by the evil influences which surround them. 
 The cure is an open Bible and free schools, 
 and a home on our wide uncultivated ter- 
 ritories, where the husbandman receives the 
 reward of his labour. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 Sorrows now began to thicken around 
 our young friend. With a sick mother — 
 living in a basement — a drunken step-father 
 — her twin-brother and only companion 
 gone and lying sick in the hospital ! 
 
 As she passed, during that first summer, 
 day by day, from Cherry Street to Mott 
 Street, with the caps which her feeble mo- 
 ther's hand had made, every thing must have 
 seemed very different from what she had 
 been accustomed to in old England. She 
 feels a sense of degradation, because she 
 knows people look upon her as a child of 
 poverty. Her clothes are not as nice and 
 clean as they used to be. That desire to 
 make a respectable appearance in neatness 
 and good taste, so important to a well-bred 
 little girl, is offended. Her keen perception 
 discerns, in the contrast with all around her, 
 and in the cold and disdainful look of other 
 
92 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMANJ OR, 
 
 children, that she is degraded. She is not 
 the well-dressed, happy, fondly-loved little 
 child she used to be. Day after day these 
 delicate feelings of her nature are wounded. 
 She is beginning to learn how to suffer. 
 She says — 
 
 " My brother went to the hospital five or 
 six months, I should think, after we came 
 over. In about two weeks after he went, I 
 was taken sick with the ship-fever. We had 
 no doctor and no medicine, and we were in a 
 bad place in the basement, and I kept get- 
 ting worse ; and the people were afraid to 
 have me in the house, and they told me I 
 could not get well unless I went to the hos- 
 pital. All I remember about it is, that my 
 step-father took me away from my mother, 
 and carried me in his arms out of doors, and 
 put me on a dray which the store-keeper 
 above owned, and they drove me down to 
 the boat which goes to Staten Island. My 
 step-father did not go down to the island 
 with me, but left me alone on the ferry-boat. 
 There was somebody on the boat who took 
 care of the sick who were going to the 
 quarantine hospital. 
 
 " There were a good many other sick peo- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 93 
 
 pie who went down with me in the same 
 boat. I was so weak and sick that I don't 
 remember much about the hospital ; only 
 that I was in along, narrow room, with beds 
 on each side standing with the heads towards 
 the wall. There w^ere a great many sick 
 people there, and I remember seeing one 
 girl, very near me, die, and I felt terribly. 
 I was alone and quite sick. I could not 
 bear to stay there. I was longing to see 
 my mother; and I kept asking the doctor 
 every day that I might be sent home. I 
 got better after I had stayed there a week or 
 two ; but I was very weak and pale. I felt 
 so badly, and cried to see my mother so 
 much, that the doctor then said I might go 
 back to New York. There w r ere two or 
 three girls coming up one morning from the 
 hospital, and they said they would take care 
 of me. They had never been in New York, 
 but they thought they could find where I 
 lived. I was sick, and near falling down in 
 going to the ferry from the hospital. We 
 all came up in the ferry-boat together ; but 
 when we got to the dock at the Battery, the 
 girls did not know where to go to get to 
 Cherry Street, and I did not know the way 
 
94 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN ; OR, 
 
 So we went walking around, asking peopk, 
 and trying to find it. But we got lost, and 
 wandered all around a long time through dif- 
 ferent streets. I got so tired and weak that I 
 could not see any thing, hardly. It was in 
 the summer, and it was very warm walking in 
 the hot sun, and I thought I should fall down. 
 At last we thought we should have to give 
 up finding Cherry Street. Just then I 
 looked up a street, and saw the place where 
 I used to go with the caps, which was in 
 Mott Street, a little way above Chatham 
 Street, and then I knew where we were, and 
 that we were in Chatham Street, and I told 
 the girls I knew the way home ; but they 
 did not believe me at first, and asked me 
 how I knew. And I told them about the 
 cap-store which the Jew kept, and which 
 way I used to go home down Roosevelt 
 Street. Then they believed me, and let me 
 go home alone. I crossed over and went 
 part way down Roosevelt Street ; but I was 
 so weak I could not go any farther, and I 
 had to sit down on a door-step ; and it 
 seemed as if I could never go on again. 
 When I was rested a little, I went on to 
 Cherry Street, wishing so much to see my 
 
I 
 
 THE CANDY-GIRL. 95 
 
 mother ; and when I got where we lived, I 
 stood at the stairs of the basement, but I 
 could not go down ; I was afraid of falling — 
 I was so weak. The people in the upper part 
 of the house were looking out of the win- 
 dows, and wondered to see me back so 
 soon. 
 
 "My step-father was down in the basement, 
 whittling out a little boat or ship, or some 
 such thing. When he saw me, he came up 
 and carried me down, and laid me on the 
 bed. I felt very sick, and I was so tired, and 
 heated, and worn out, that it brought on the 
 fever again. 
 
 "I looked around and did not find my 
 mother. 'Where is my mother?' I asked. 
 My step-father said she had got the fever, 
 too; and had gone to Ward's Island, where 
 Johnny was. I can't tell how I felt then. 
 It seemed as if I should die. I was all 
 alone with my step-father in that miserable 
 cellar. He said they ought not to have 
 let me come from the hospital. 
 
 " That night I had a dreadful fever, and 
 there was no one but him to take care of me. 
 He said I kept tossing about, was talking 
 wild all night, and kept wanting 6 my mother ! 
 
96 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 my mother !' all the time; but I did noi 
 know any thing about it. And I don't re- 
 member any thing more until I found my- 
 self at the hospital on Ward's Island, in one 
 of the children's wards. My step-father said 
 I was at home two days, but I was so sick 
 with the fever that they did not dare to have 
 me there, and he had me brought up to the 
 hospital on Ward's Island. I j ust remember 
 the evening when I came to the island ; they 
 took me into one of the children's wards. 
 It was a small, white, wooden building, with 
 one story, and had only one long room, full 
 of sick children on narrow beds. I was very 
 sick with the fever, and did not mind much 
 for a week or so after I got there. My 
 nead felt badly. When I began to get a 
 little better, and noticed things, I talked a 
 little to the nurse who took care of me. She 
 was very kind to me. I asked her if she 
 knew where my mother was, and told her 
 my mother's name, and that she was some- 
 where at the hospital. But she did not 
 know her. 1 kept asking the doctor, and 
 everybody, where my mother was, but they 
 always told me she was not there. I never 
 could find her, or hear about her. I sup- 
 
THE CANDf-GIRL. 
 
 97 
 
 pose they were afraid to tell me all about 
 her. I thought that she had got well and 
 gone back to New York ; and I thought I 
 should get well soon, and go back to her ; 
 and I kept hoping this, night and day. 
 
 ""When I was a little better, one morning, 
 as I was sitting up, I looked around through 
 the room. There were little children and 
 babies sick on every bed, I should think fifty 
 or sixty of them ; and, at the other end of 
 the room, there was my little brother Johnny, 
 sitting up, too! He looked sick and un- 
 happy. I called the nurse and told her that 
 was my brother. She would not believe me 
 at first ; but I asked her to ask him his name, 
 and she went over and asked him, but he 
 wouldn't say any thing. He did not seem 
 to notice. She then pointed over to me, and 
 said, 'Who is that little girl over there? Do 
 you know her name V He looked over to 
 me, and a smile came over his face, and he 
 said, 'It is Maria, my sister!' He knew me 
 at once. 
 
 "When I began to get a little better, I 
 longed to see my mother ; I wanted her to take 
 care of me, and I had not seen her for so 
 long. But I could not hear of her from any 
 
98 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 one. I used to think then of my old home 
 in England with my grandfather. 
 
 " One night I dreamed I had gone back, 
 and saw my grandfather, my grandmother, 
 and my aunt ; and that I was living again 
 with them, as happy as I used to be. It 
 seemed as if all my troubles were over. 
 When I woke up in the morning, I won- 
 dered to find myself in the hospital. I was 
 disappointed when I found it all a dream. 
 
 " It looked not very pleasant all round me 
 in the daytime, for there were so many 
 children sick and crying with pain, and they 
 all looked sad. I soon got so well that I 
 could sit up by my brother's bed, and I used 
 to be with him most of the day, and give 
 him his food and medicine. One day he 
 got up from his bed and seemed pretty well. 
 The nurse let him sit in the easy-chair, and 
 they took the bandage olf his legs, and he 
 walked around a little. But he soon began 
 to feel worse, and his legs commenced swell- 
 ing again, and grew cold, and he had to go 
 to bed again. He never got up after that 
 Wlien I would sit by him he did not talk 
 much. He wanted to go back to mother, 
 and he kept asking every day fcx mother. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 99 
 
 'Where is mother? Won't mother come 
 and see me?' " 
 
 Poor, suffering children! Alone, sick in 
 a hospital; yearning for a mother's gentle 
 voice and affectionate sympathy ! But there 
 was no mother there! "I told Johnny I 
 thought mother was in New York, and 
 when he got better he might go and see her 
 again. After I had been there about two or 
 three weeks, I took a third fever. Being 
 among the sick so much, I suppose, brought 
 it on. But I got better of this soon, and 
 then they sent me out of the sick-room into 
 the nursery, where the well children stay, 
 and go to school, 7 for fear I would be sick 
 again. The nursery was right across the 
 way from the ward where I w^as sick. After 
 the school was over every afternoon, and be- 
 fore school in the morning, I used to go over 
 and sit beside Johnny. He was very pale 
 and thin. He kept getting worse and wors#, 
 but I did not know how bad he was. He 
 would ask me where mother was, but I could 
 not tell him, for I did not know\ Sometimes 
 he would call out for mother when he was 
 asleep, and put out his hands and feel after 
 her. 
 
100 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 " One morning, when I came in from the 
 nursery to see him, the nurse told me he 
 was dead. She said he had died in the 
 night, and that no one was up watching that 
 night. So he died all alone in the dark." 
 (And here the poor child burst into tears as 
 she was relating it.) "The nurse said he 
 cried out in the night for some one. She 
 thought it was for his mother ; but he had to 
 die all alone, without his mother, for she was 
 already dead, but I did not know it them 
 I went and sat by his bed. He was cold, and 
 pale, and thin ; he had been sick so long. I 
 sat by him, crying, until they came in for 
 him. I saw them put him into a coffin and 
 carry him away." 
 
 "Did you attend his funeral?" 
 
 "Oh, they don't have any funerals for 
 them that die there. I heard them say 
 they carried him to some island, near 
 there, I believe, to bury him. I was left all 
 alone then. I did not know what would' 
 become of me. I was kept in the nursery 
 with the children. I wanted to get away 
 and come to New York to see my mother, 
 but they would not let me go. I feared 
 I should never get away. I thought I 
 
i 
 
 THE CANDY-GIRL. 101 
 
 should have to stay there until I was 
 grown up. 
 
 "People sometimes come there to get chil- 
 dren to take as their own. One day a lady 
 came to take a little girl to bring up. All the 
 girls were together up in the nursery, and she 
 looked over them all, and she chose me. I 
 wanted to go, that I might get away. But 
 they would not let me go, because they 
 thought I had friends who might come for 
 me. A few days after, the lady came again, 
 and wanted me, but they would not let me go. 
 
 "I tried to learn about my mother every- 
 day. I felt very badly that I could not go 
 to her, and I was afraid I should always have 
 to stay there among the poor children, and I 
 kept asking every one how I could get away. 
 
 "I used to think then of what a nice home 
 I had with my grandmother; and I never 
 forgot the Lord's Prayer, which she taught 
 me, and I used to say it every night in the 
 hospital, except when I was too sick. It 
 seemed hard for me to be so sick so much, 
 and away from my mother. I knew God 
 did it, and I don't think I ever felt that he 
 was unkind to me. 
 
 " For two or three weeks after my brother 
 9* 
 
/ 
 
 102 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 died I stayed in the nursery. One day, when 
 I was going up-stairs, after dinner, I heard 
 some one call out i Maria !' at the door at the 
 foot of the stairs behind me. I knew the 
 voice. It was my step-father's. I felt all at 
 once stunned, and I was blind for a minute 
 and could not see. I did not know what 
 was the matter with me ; I suppose now that 
 it was because I was so glad to get away. I 
 knew he had come for me. He said he was 
 going to take me home, and told me to get 
 ready at once. I was delighted to think I 
 was going home to my mother. I hurried 
 and got all my things in a few minutes, and 
 started out of the nursery with him. As we 
 were going out, I told him that Johnny had 
 died. And then my step-father said my 
 mother was dead, too. I stopped, and began 
 to cry. He said, 4 Hush ! there is no use in 
 crying now. Your mother died there point- 
 ing to a hospital right opposite to where we 
 were. It was the first I heard of her since 
 I went to Quarantine Hospital. She died 
 close to where I had been sick and where 
 Johnny died, and we never knew it!" 
 
 Maria says that the nurses were kind to 
 her in the hospital, but that no one spoke 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 103 
 
 gently to her of her soul, or words of Chris- 
 tian sympathy, during the long weeks she 
 was confined there. Her little brother died 
 without any such comfort, and probably her 
 mother heard no words of hope and heaven 
 from pious lips in her last hours. 
 
 In the name of these little sufferers, we ap- 
 peal to the young Christians in our great 
 cities, whose hearts burn with the desire to do 
 good, to listen to the voice of wailing as it 
 comes up night and day from these abodes of 
 sorrow. Will they not visit these suffering 
 orphans in their affliction, speak gentle 
 words of encouragement to them, give them 
 a pleasant smile, talk to them of the blessed 
 Saviour who loved little children, point them 
 to the Lamb of God who died for them, 
 and teach the fatherless to say " Our Father 
 who art in heaven?" 
 
 Let their visits be regular and frequent, 
 and they will soon be surprised at the amount 
 of good they may do these little ones, and 
 the sufferings they will alleviate. Soon 
 these little strangers will look upon them as 
 angels of mercy, 
 
 * And they an angel's happiness shall know." 
 
104 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN J OR, 
 
 They may soothe the dying hours of many 
 a little orphan, and others they may awake 
 from the lethargy of death to life and joy 
 again. Their presence will always shed a 
 gleam of sunlight and gladness upon those 
 sad, pale faces. How many who weep over 
 imaginary sufferings, or over the sorrows of 
 some particular class, or over the woes of the 
 human race, and long to alleviate them, might 
 here find their abilities and their sympathies 
 fully tasked ! 
 
 "When one that holds communion with the skies 
 Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise, 
 And once more mingled with us meaner things, 
 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings ; 
 Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
 That tells us whence his treasures are supplied." 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 THE LITTLE WORKERS. 
 
 Maria left Ward's Island an orphan. Her 
 mother and brother had found their resting- 
 place in Potters'-field, where strangers are 
 buried. She had just heard of her mother's 
 death. She says — 
 
 "I went with my step-father across the 
 river in a boat, and then we took a stage on 
 the Third Avenue and came down to Frank- 
 lin Square. I asked where he was going to 
 take me, and he said he had got a place for 
 me to live with Mrs. Dougherty, who kept a 
 boarding-house at No. — , Cherry Street 
 Her husband was a shoemaker, and worked 
 in the basement. I went there with my 
 step-father. 
 
 " I know I looked thin and pale, and every 
 one thought I should die. I felt very wretched, 
 and wanted to go back again to England, 
 I used to talk to my step-father about it. He 
 said he wanted to go back to Ireland, too, 
 
106 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 and lie would go and take a passage. A few 
 days after we came back from Ward's Island, 
 he pretended to go down to South Street to get 
 a passage for us back to Ireland. He went 
 down, but he did not get a passage — some- 
 thing prevented it that day — I don't know 
 what ; and then he spent his money, and he 
 never had enough afterwards to pay for a 
 passage, and so I lost all hopes of ' getting 
 back. I never wanted to go to Ireland, for 
 I never exactly liked Irish people; but I 
 hoped in some way, if I got to Ireland, to 
 get back to England to my grandfather's. 
 
 "My step-father did not have much work 
 while I was in the hospital. He had got 
 back the things my mother had pawned, and 
 he sold them again, and got more money. 
 He sold all my clothes and my books, all 
 the presents my grandmother gave me, and 
 spent the money in drink. I had a pretty 
 transparent slate, on which I used to draw., 
 and which I liked very much ; he sold this, 
 and my Bible, too, which was a present from 
 my grandmother. My step-father was a 
 Catholic, and would never let me read the 
 Bible. He said when people came to this 
 country they must read such books as they 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 107 
 
 had here; and that they had other books 
 here, and didn't read the Bible. He sold all 
 the furniture my mother had, and I never 
 saw any thing of her's, nor any of her 
 clothes, or any of my clothes, after I came 
 out of the hospital, except those I then had on. 
 
 " I was very fond of my marking-slate, 
 and of working worsted on samplers, but he 
 sold them all, or gave them away. Some- 
 body told me, that he used to have mother's 
 things out of the trunks while she was in 
 the hospital, and the people around would 
 carry them off when he did not know it. 
 
 " When I first went to Mrs. Dougherty's, 
 she kept a number of boarders, and lived very 
 well until she got sick. She used to have 
 convulsions, and grieved after her children 
 who were in Ireland ; and she was sorry she 
 came here at all. She came over here with- 
 out them, thinking she could send money to 
 bring them over. But she was sickly, and 
 could not get the money. After she came 
 here she married this Mr. Dougherty, who 
 was a shoemaker. I used to help her about 
 house, and to wash the dishes. In a few 
 months after I went there, she sent me out 
 to pick up wood. She said other little girls 
 
108 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAtf; OK, 
 
 did it, and I could as well as they. She had 
 a dreadful temper, and I was afraid of her. 
 If I did the least thing out of the way, she 
 would call me names, and get mad at me, 
 and strike me sometimes. Her husband 
 used to torment her. He did not care about 
 her. He was not kind to her, and sometimes, 
 when he worried her, she would go out and 
 sit in the snow and say she wished she could 
 die. But he did not care about that. 
 
 "Mrs. Dougherty made me sew, and treated 
 me pretty well for a while. After I had 
 been with her a year or so, she got sick, and 
 they sent her to the hospital, where she stayed 
 a week or two, I should think. "While she 
 was gone, her husband went and sold all her 
 things — her beds and furniture — to another 
 person who went into the house ; and Dough- 
 erty went into the basement to live, and 
 boarded in the same house, and I stayed 
 there too. When Mrs. Dougherty came back, 
 she found her house had been sold out, and 
 all her things sold. She seemed to give up. 
 She and he then left Cherry Street and 
 went into a basement in Catharine Street, 
 and I went with them. Her husband then 
 went away and left her for a few months, 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 109 
 
 and did nothing for her. She went to live 
 then in a basement in Park Place, and her 
 husband came back and lived with her there, 
 and he worked at his trade for a time. 
 
 " Mrs. Dougherty used to make me get the 
 wood every day ; and I learned to sew, and 
 worked on coarse shirts. She treated me 
 pretty well, only she was very cross. About 
 three years ago, I should think, her husband 
 went away and left her, and has never been 
 back since, and has never given her any 
 money. About this time she moved into 
 No. — Pearl Street, where she has lived ever 
 since. 
 
 "About this time she began to sell fruit 
 and candy, and I now began to work very 
 hard. It must have been two years and a 
 half ago, I should think. My step-father 
 did not see me very often, and he never 
 gave me any clothes or any money, but left 
 me to old Mrs. Dougherty. 
 
 "From that time, until Mr. C took 
 
 me, I had to work every day, selling fruit 
 and candy. The old woman would make 
 me get up at about daylight, summer and 
 winter, and we would go both of us down 
 to the market without our breakfast. She- 
 10 
 
110 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 would buy two baskets of fruit, apples or 
 peaches, and take the baskets to the corner 
 of the church, or Lovejoy's Hotel, where she 
 would leave me to sell the fruit, and go home 
 to get breakfast. When she got her break- 
 fast she would come out and take my place, 
 and I would go home and get my breakfast. 
 "We always had enough to eat. After break- 
 fast I would come back and take the basket 
 of apples or peaches, and go around to sell 
 them. She would make me travel all day. 
 1 used to go into the Park, to Lovejoy's Ho- 
 tel, then all along Park Row to Broadway, 
 down Broadway as far as John Street, and 
 down John, Ann, and Fulton Streets, into 
 the hotels and shops. They would not allow 
 us to go into the Astor House. It seemed 
 very hard at first for me to go around so, for 
 I was barefoot in the summer, and I was at 
 first ashamed to go into the stores, and I got 
 another girl to go in with me until I got 
 used to it. But Airs. Dougherty made me go. 
 She said other girls as good as I did it, and 
 as I had no other home but with her, I had 
 to do it. 
 
 " She would bring out my dinner to me into 
 the Park at noon, sometimes, and then I 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 would have to go on the same way all the 
 afternoon, until dark. Some days I sold 
 two baskets of peaches or apples, and then 
 I made four or six shillings. This was the 
 way I did every day for two years. I had a 
 great many customers who knew me. I did 
 not know their names, but I knew their 
 faces. She always counted out the fruit for 
 me every day, and told me exactly how 
 much I must sell them for. After I got 
 home at night I had to go around to get 
 a basket of chips and wood to burn for the 
 next day. I generally got it in new build- 
 ings in Beekman Street. Sometimes I had 
 to go a great ways for it when I was very 
 tired. When I got the wood, then I sewed 
 with Mrs. Dougherty on shirts until ten 
 o'clock, when we went to bed. During these 
 two years I think I worked every day, Sun- 
 days and all, in this way. I never had a 
 play-day, and never went to church. I al- 
 ways had to work on Sunday. I was 
 generally sitting on Sunday opposite 
 the church or in the Park. It made no 
 difference how cold it was, or whether it 
 rained or snowed. When it rained, I gene- 
 rally went to the corner of Broadway and 
 
112 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Vesey Street, under an awning. I sold more 
 on such very bad days, when no one else was 
 out, and that was the reason the old woman 
 made me go out. I always had to go out 
 on the streets the coldest days in the winter, 
 and stay all day. 
 
 " The old woman would scold at me and 
 whip me if I did not. When I came home 
 at night, we used to have very little fire, be- 
 cause the old woman got all her coal given 
 to her from the City Hall, and she was very 
 sparing of it. 
 
 46 1 used to tell her that I did not want 
 to go out on Sunday, that I knew it was 
 not right ; but she said it was not so bad 
 for poor folks to work on Sunday as for 
 other people ; and she would scold at me, 
 and say that I was a lazy, good-for-nothing 
 girl, and did not know how much she had 
 done for me. She always tried to make me 
 think that I ought to work for her until I 
 was grown up, to pay her for taking care of 
 me ; and she said she had done a great deal 
 for me. Sometimes I would miss a good 
 bargain, because I could not sell a little 
 cheaper to anybody who would take a good 
 many ; but if I did take any less, she would 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 113 
 
 iind it out when I came home, and then she 
 would search me to see if I had not hid the 
 money. I never did deceive her; but she 
 used often to whip me when I came home, 
 because I had not money enough. 
 
 " Sometimes a boy would steal away some 
 of my apples, and sometimes they would 
 not hold out according to her count, and 
 then the old woman would get very angry 
 with me, and search my pockets or whip 
 me. If I did not sell enough she would get 
 angry, and call me lazy, and say I did not 
 care to sell for her ; that I cared for other 
 people more than for her. If any one ever 
 gave me money, she would take it away from 
 me. I remember, one morning, two gentle- 
 men, in the Clinton Hotel, talked to me. 
 I was barefoot. They seemed to be French- 
 like. They asked me if I had a father and 
 mother. I told them no. They then gave 
 me a shilling a-piece ; but the old woman 
 took it away from me at night. At another 
 time, a gentleman in the Exchange Office, 
 in Lovejoy's Hotel, gave me, on New Year's 
 day, two shillings ; but the old woman found 
 it out, and she took that away from me, and 
 
 pretended she was going to buy something 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 with it for me; but I never heard of it 
 again, and I got tired of asking her for it. 
 
 " The old woman was sickly, and her 
 temper grew w T orse and worse every month. 
 She got so during the last year, that she 
 scolded at me almost all the time I was at 
 home. She would scold at me for not getting 
 up early enough in the morning, and call 
 me all sorts of bad names. I had to get up 
 before five o'clock in the morning. Almost 
 every day she would make out something 
 wrong when I came home from selling fruit. 
 
 " All her trouble and sickness only made 
 her more cross to me. She was furious if I 
 said I did not want to do what she wanted 
 me to. She would whip me one, two, or 
 three times a week, and perhaps more. 
 When she was angry, she would catch up a 
 stick of kindling-wood and strike me on my 
 arms or back, or she would strike me with 
 her hands. She has often knocked me 
 down by striking me with her hand on the 
 side of my head. If I cried out very loud, it 
 only made her so much the worse. The 
 neighbours would hear me cry; but she 
 talked so much and so loud that they did 
 not like to say any thing to her. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 115 
 
 " There was a Scotchman, a shoemaker, 
 on the same floor, and he used to tell me to 
 run away from her ; that it was too bad for 
 her to whip me so, and that she had no 
 right to me. Sometimes, when she was 
 scolding me, I would tell her I would go 
 away from her. She would say I could not 
 get away ; that my step-father gave me up 
 to her, and I must stay and pay her for her 
 trouble with me. Sometimes she said I 
 might go if I wanted to. Once I asked her 
 for my clothes, and said I would go ; but 
 she never gave them to me, and, of course, 
 I could not go without them. Sometimes 
 she was so furious I was afraid of her. I 
 was afraid to tell anybody how she treated 
 me, for she said she would whip me if I told 
 anybody about her in any way. Once, in 
 Pearl Street, I remember, late one Saturday 
 night, she wanted me to go up to Mulberry 
 Street to get some cakes and candy for to 
 sell on Sunday. I was very tired, for I had 
 been out all day, and then, when I got home, 
 [ had every Saturday to get a double quantity 
 of wood for Sunday, and to wash up the 
 floor afterwards. It was near ten o'clock, 
 and I told her I was tired and did not want 
 
116 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN ; OR, 
 
 to go. She got angry, and ran at me and 
 struck me with her hand on the head and 
 knocked me down, called me a lazy girl and 
 indecent names. This was not long before 
 
 Mr. C took me away. Once she hurt 
 
 my head, and I was sick for some days, and 
 after that she was careful not to hurt niv 
 face or bruise it when she whipped me, be- 
 cause when I went out it would show. I 
 often asked her to let me go and live with 
 some person, but she would say I was well 
 enough off; that many a one was not so 
 well off as I, and that nobody would give 
 me my board and clothes for what I could 
 do ; and she always told me not to say to 
 any one I wanted to get away ; that if I did 
 she would whip me. 
 
 " I never had any new clothes while I was 
 with her. She used to make me dresses out 
 of her old ones ; and sometimes she would 
 buy me second-hand ones at the shops. 
 But I was generally very cold in the winter, 
 by being out all day long in the streets, and 
 often wdien I went home there was no fire. 
 During all this time my step-father never 
 came near me. He was away somewhere, 
 and he never gave me any thing." 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 117 
 
 Thus was this poor bereaved child doomed 
 to bondage and misery. Hard toil from five 
 o'clock in the morning until ten at night, from 
 month to month, summer and winter, was her 
 lot. Her toil was unceasing. No Sunday, no 
 rest, no holiday ! All the desires of the child 
 for youthful sport were checked. No home 
 cheered her at night ; no mother's face, no 
 brother's or sister's welcome. It was hard — 
 it was cruel, but it did not degrade her. 
 Labour is always respectable. The honest 
 labour of the poor children in the city of 
 New York is always touching. These little 
 things are striving for subsistence — often 
 for the subsistence of a widowed and dis- 
 abled mother, and younger brothers and 
 sisters — grappling with the sternest realities 
 of life, and disdaining to beg. Speak gently 
 to these little workers. Aid them by a 
 kind word as well as by patronage. Do not 
 send them roughly from your door. En- 
 courage them to honesty and industry. A 
 harsh word may drive to madness some de- 
 spairing stranger who is seeking an honest 
 livelihood, or may chill the heart of some 
 poor distressed child — not begging, but man- 
 fully struggling for a loaf of bread. 
 
118 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 It is terrible to think that by a harsh 
 word, thoughtlessly uttered, we may crush a 
 wounded spirit. An inquiry into their 
 circumstances and trials, and a word of 
 sympathy will often cheer a fainting hearty 
 and perhaps save from a life of crime or 
 shame. 
 
 "I never had scarcely a person speak 
 kindly to me in the streets for three years, 
 or inquire about me and my circumstances, 
 except one or two men in hotels, when I 
 went in, barefoot, on cold, rainy days. No 
 person ever asked me where I lived, whether 
 I went to Sunday-school, or if I could read, 
 
 until Mr. C asked me, on Sunday morn- 
 
 ing." 
 
 Let him who would do good in a humble 
 yet raost efficient way, follow the little 
 freezing beggar, with tears in her eyes — the 
 little match-pedler telling his story of a sick 
 mother — the boy asking for a job — tlie street- 
 sweeper asking for a penny — the woman 
 with her perishing children — let him follow 
 tliese to their miserable homes. Let him, 
 when he finds real suffering and real worth, 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 119 
 
 speak a word of consolation and encourage- 
 ment — furnish a little food and fuel, and a 
 warm garment or two for half-naked chil- 
 dren — then bring a Bible — then lead 
 the child to the nearest Sunday-school. 
 Such a man would be surprised, at the 
 end of a year, to see what he had done. 
 He would certainly find many cases of im- 
 position. But among these suffering, rag- 
 ged, forlorn children he would find many a 
 brave little hero, whose life was a battle. 
 He would often find examples of piety and 
 resignation in the hovels of destitution, 
 which would elevate his own faith and 
 humble his heart. He would learn to re- 
 spect labour, and to feel for the tempted. 
 He would find a tide of new and generous 
 sympathies filling his heart, increasing his 
 happiness, and elevating his nature. He 
 would see fearful contrasts between his own 
 lot and that of others, between the happi- 
 ness of his own children and that of 
 thousands around him, which would fill his 
 soul with thankfulness to the God of pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 Almost any day, in the streets of New 
 York, you may see a little boy, eleven years 
 
120 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 old, who was driven away from his home 
 by a drunken father and a cruel step-mother. 
 His father was once a very respectable man, 
 and left England when Johnny was quite 
 young. After his mother's death his father 
 came to this country, and here fell into bad 
 company, and married a bad woman, and 
 became a drunkard. His father and step- 
 mother banished him from home. He is 
 sickly and lame; yet for a long time past 
 he has traversed the streets, selling pens, 
 pencils, picture-books, pins, matches, &c. ; 
 and by this means he pays for his lodging 
 at the newsboys' lodging-house, and buys 
 his meals at an eating-cellar in Fulton Street. 
 An honest worker is lame Johnny ! But 
 he is more than this : he is a noble boy ! 
 He has a little brother, Willie, only five 
 years old, who has also been driven away 
 from home, and him has Johnny received 
 and provided for. He has employed Willie 
 in trade, until now this little fellow traverses 
 New York, Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and 
 Jersey City, alone, prosecuting his lawful 
 business with as much confidence and 
 shrewdness as a man, making sometimes 
 four shillings a day. Johnny counsels him, 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 121 
 
 restrains him from waywardness and wicked 
 companions. This little Willie is a brave boy. 
 Hear a little of his conversation with ns : — 
 "Willie, why did you go away from 
 home ?" 
 
 " Because I be's licked every day for no- 
 thing, and mother makes me go a-begging." 
 
 " Is not your father kind to you ?" 
 
 " Yes, sometimes, when he ain't drunk ; 
 but he gets drunk every day, and so does 
 my mother, and then they licks me for 
 every thing." 
 
 "Have you any brothers or sisters ?" 
 
 "Yes, I have a sister older than Johnny, 
 who picks up cold victuals, and one little 
 brother who can't walk. He sits on the 
 floor all the time, and my mother licks him 
 all the time, most, for crying; and if he 
 cries when he is hungry, he gets a licking 
 too, with a strap." 
 
 " What are you going to do, Willie, when 
 you are grown up ?" 
 
 " When I get bigger, I am going to get 
 my little brother away, as Johnny got me, 
 and take care of him." 
 
 " What do you do with the money you 
 make?" 
 
 11 
 
122 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 "I gives it to Johnny. He buys other 
 things with it." 
 
 " Johnny is very good to you, isn't he ?" 
 
 "Yes: he takes me to Mr. C 's Sun- 
 day-school. But Johnny is sick, and the 
 boys say he won't live long. He's got a 
 sore on his leg which makes him lame, and 
 the doctor be's trying to cure it, but can't." 
 
 "Where do you sleep, "Willie?" 
 
 " I sleeps at the lodging-house, if I get in 
 before they lock up; but sometimes I get 
 locked out, and then I walk about the streets, 
 sometimes, if it is cold, all night; and some- 
 times I sleep on a cart, or in a box." 
 
 "How much do you spend every day?" 
 
 " I give sixpence for my lodging, and I give 
 ninepence for a cup of coffee and meat for 
 breakfast; and I buy a sixpence-worth of 
 bread and butter for my dinner, and take it 
 with me ; and I don't get much supper." 
 
 " Can you read, Willie ?" 
 
 "Not much, but Johnny can; he goes to 
 day-school every day, and takes me, some- 
 times, but I get to sleep there. I don't like 
 school much." 
 
 So talked Willie, the little pedler, nine 
 years old. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 123 
 
 Johnny, we hope, is in the way to be a 
 Christian. He is always at Sunday-school, 
 and frequently brings new scholars with him. 
 He attends a day-school regularly, and yet 
 supports himself by peddling before and 
 after school. 
 
 He is seeking a place in the country for 
 Willie, for he says Willie is getting with bad 
 boys, who get his money away from him. 
 
 Such is the brief history of one of our 
 little worthies. Who is labouring more 
 nobly, or doing his duty more faithfully, 
 than lame Johnny? You may meet him 
 about the streets of K"ew York, daily. Be 
 kind to him. Speak gently to him, and aid 
 him — for he is working hard for a noble 
 purpose — how much more noble and ac- 
 ceptable to God than the aims of thousands 
 i in our city, whose richly-freighted vessels are 
 in our harbours, whose merchandise occu- 
 pies our stores, and whose gold and silver 
 fill the vaults of our great commercial me- 
 tropolis ! 
 
 From among these working boys it is 
 possible, by proper selection and encourage- 
 ment, to find good clerks and apprentices. 
 Who are more energetic and enterprising 
 
124 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 among our men of business, than self-made 
 men, who have risen from poverty and hard- 
 ship ? It may be asked, how can we sys- 
 tematically reach and aid this class of chil- 
 dren ? 
 
 Take one of these boys, and train him up 
 to your own business. 
 
 Let every church in the city regard the 
 care of these poor children as a great duty, 
 and provide some means, by mission schools, 
 or otherwise, for their amelioration. 
 
 Sunday-schools, by means of their mis- 
 sionary agents, or otherwise, must endea- 
 vour to provide homes in the country for a 
 certain number of these children, every year. 
 
 Let each Christian and philanthropist 
 remove at least one of these destitute ones 
 every year to a home in the country. 
 
 Let the Sunday-schools in the country co- 
 operate in this work, by seeking places for 
 such children in their own vicinity. 
 
 Let Christian families in the country take 
 one of tuese boys or girls, and bring them 
 up religiously. These children can always 
 be found by proper application to the insti- 
 tutions that now provide for them. 
 
 Suppose that each of the two hundred 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 125 
 
 Sunday-schools connected with the New 
 York Sunday-school Union should thus pro- 
 vide each year for ten of these poor chil- 
 dren — which would be not less than two 
 thousand children each year — who can com- 
 pute the good which might thus be done by 
 this simple means ? 
 
 This sympathy with human suffering is 
 not religion — it is not faith; but it is the 
 fruit of faith — it is an effect of religion. It 
 is in imitation of Christ. He went about 
 "healing every sickness and every disease 
 among the people." 
 
 "But when he saw the multitude, he was 
 moved with compassion on them, because 
 they fainted, and were scattered abroad as 
 sheep having no shepherd." 
 
 "And he said, I have compassion on the 
 * multitude, because they continue with me 
 now three days, and have nothing to eat. I 
 will not send them away fasting, lest they 
 faint in the way." 
 
 " He that hath not the spirit of Christ is 
 none of his." 
 
 There is force and truth in the following 
 
 poem, written by a working-man, who knew 
 
 and felt the sorrows of the poor : 
 11* 
 
126 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 "God help the poor, who in this wintry morn 
 Come forth from alleys dim and courts obscure ! 
 God help yon poor, pale girl, who droops forlorn, 
 And meekly her affliction doth endure ! 
 God help her, outcast lamb ! She trembling stands — 
 All wan her lips, and frozen red her hands ; 
 Her sunken eyes are modestly downcast ; 
 Her night-black hair streams on the fitful blast ; 
 Her bosom, passing fair, is half-reveal'd, 
 And oh! so cold, the snow lies there congeal'd; 
 Her feet benumb'd, her shoes all rent and worn ! 
 God help thee, outcast lamb, who stands forlorn! 
 God help the poor! 
 
 " God help the poor! An infant's feeble wail 
 Comes from yon narrow gateway ; and, behold ! 
 A female crouching there, so deathly pale, 
 Huddling her child to screen it from the cold. 
 Her vesture scant, her bonnet crush'd and torn ; 
 A thin shawl doth her baby dear enfold ; 
 And so she bides the ruthless gale of morn, 
 Which almost to her heart hath sent its cold. 
 And now she sudden darts a ravening look, 
 As one with new hot bread goes past the nook; 
 And as the tempting load is onward borne, 
 She weeps. God help the hapless one forlorn! 
 God help the poor! 
 
 ** God help the poor! Behold yon famish'd lad! 
 No shoes nor hose his wounded feet protect. 
 With limping gait, and looks so dreamy sad, 
 lie wanders onward, stopping to inspect 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 127 
 
 Each window stored with articles of food. 
 He yearns but to enjoy one cheering meal. 
 Oh ! to the hungry palate viands rude 
 Would yield a zest the famish'd only feel ! 
 He now devours a crust of mouldy bread; 
 With teeth and hands the precious boon is torn, 
 Unmindful of the storm that round his head 
 Impetuous sweeps. God help the child forlorn! 
 God help the poor! 
 
 "God help the poor! Another have I found; 
 A bowed and venerable man is he. 
 His slouched hat with faded crape is bound ; 
 His coat is gray, and threadbare too, I see. 
 The rude winds seem to mock his hoary hair ; 
 His shirtless bosom to the blast is bare ; 
 Anon he turns, and casts a wistful eye, 
 And with scant napkin wipes the blinding spray, 
 And looks around, as if he fain would spy 
 Friends he had feasted in his better day. 
 Ah ! some are dead, and some have long forborne 
 To know the poor ; and he is left forlorn. 
 God help the poor ! 
 
 "God help the poor who in lone valleys dwell, 
 Or by far hills, where whin and heather grow ! 
 Their's is a story sad indeed to tell. 
 Yet little cares the world, and less 'twould know, 
 About the toil and want men undergo. 
 The wearying loom doth call them up at morn : 
 They work till worn-out nature sinks to sleep ; 
 They taste, but are not fed. The snow drifts deep 
 
128 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Around the fireless cot, and blocks the door; 
 The night-storm howls a dirge across the moor. 
 And shall they perish thus, oppressed and lorn? 
 Shall toil and famine hopeless still be borne? 
 No ! God shall yet arise, and help the poor!" 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 the Scotchman's narrative. 
 
 It may seem to some that Maria's ac- 
 count is the exaggerated statement of a 
 child naturally endeavouring to make the 
 best story of her trials. In order to ascertain 
 from others her real condition while with 
 the old woman, a visit was made to the 
 former abode of Maria, in Pearl Street. It 
 was a spacious house, and might have been 
 in some former day the mansion of a mer- 
 chant prince ; its solidity, faded ornaments, 
 and frescoed halls showing it to have been 
 once an elegant residence. It presented 
 one of those contrasts everywhere seen in 
 the dwellings of the lower wards of New 
 York, where the most costly and stylish 
 dwellings of those who were not long since 
 our richest citizens are now the abodes of 
 the poorest, the most filthy, and the most 
 degraded. 
 
130 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 We sometimes find in one of these fine 
 old parlours mahogany doors, beautiful mar- 
 ble mantels, frescoed ceilings, carved wood- 
 work, dingy, smoked walls, patched win- 
 dows, a latchless door, a miserable, dirty 
 bed, a few broken chairs, a wash-tub, and a 
 little cooking-stove. It is a painful but in- 
 structive contrast. 
 
 We passed up the wide stairway of this 
 old house along three pairs of stairs to the 
 garret. The paper was torn from the wall, 
 which was discoloured, and peeled, and 
 blistered by the weather. The garret was 
 partitioned off" into apartments, just under 
 the roof. There was nothing overhead 
 but the rafters and the shingles. In one of 
 the apartments of this garret, in the front 
 part of the house, towards Franklin Square, 
 we heard the sound of a shoemaker's ham- 
 mer, which told us that there was the per- 
 son we came to see ; for Maria had spoken 
 of a Scotchman, a shoemaker, who had 
 been kind to her, and who lived next door 
 to Mrs. Dougherty. 
 
 We went in, and were welcomed by a 
 good-looking man, about thirty-five years 
 
ftt. €$ee#eman. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 131 
 
 of age, seated on his kit, making a boot 
 He had a fine, open, expressive countenance. 
 His wife sat beside him, holding a little 
 girl, with a pleasing face, and about two 
 years old. The room was directly under 
 the roof, and the eaves reached to the floor 
 on one side, while on the side of the room 
 towards the centre of the house there was 
 just space for a person to stand. There was 
 scarcely ten feet square of available room. 
 The bed on one side touched the rafters. 
 There was a cooking-stove, and the shoe- 
 maker's kit, and one or two chairs, which 
 constituted all the furniture of the room. 
 The only light came through a scuttle in the 
 roof, which was open, and a pleasant March 
 sun was shining in, making every thing 
 cheerful. 
 
 So neat and tidy was this narrow place 
 that it was really attractive, and gave me a 
 positive pleasure, and a gratification of taste, 
 to look at it. The love of the orderly and 
 the beautiful is not always confined to the 
 rich. It may be seen in the hovels of the 
 poor. A flower, blooming in the sunny 
 window of a neat cottage, gives me more 
 
132 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMANJ OR, 
 
 pleasure than the costly frescoes of a modern 
 parlour. 
 
 There was something about this room of 
 the shoemaker which is only expressed by 
 the word home. There was the happy and 
 industrious father and husband, the con- 
 tented and loving wife and mother, and the 
 beloved child. There was a clock on the 
 shelf, ticking its domestic music, and a de- 
 mure cat on the bed. There were also a 
 picture of the Saviour, and one of a highland 
 chief, hanging on the side of the room 
 opposite the eaves. 
 
 The wife was talking to her husband, 
 holding the baby, and mending a stocking 
 all at once, and doing all very well. It was 
 a picture of domestic bliss. 
 
 The shoemaker was asked if he remem- 
 bered Mrs. Dougherty. 
 
 "Yes, I do," said he; "but she's dead 
 now/' 
 
 "Did you know the little girl, Maria, who 
 lived with her?" 
 
 " Indeed I did, sir, and as nice a little girl 
 as you would need to know, she was. They 
 lived right here next to me — only this board 
 partition between us." 
 
THE CANDY-GIKL. 
 
 133 
 
 He was then asked of the old woman's 
 treatment of Maria. He said — 
 
 " It was as cruel as it could be. It was 
 so bad that I could not endure to see and 
 hear it, and I thought of just going to some 
 magistrate about it. I spoke to the owner, 
 or agent, of the house, here, but he said he 
 did not like to interfere ; and all the people 
 in this house but me were Catholics, and I 
 was a Protestant, and could not speak to 
 them about it." 
 
 " The poor little child was whipped every- 
 day, and generally twice, as sure as the day 
 came around, by that wicked old woman. 
 She was so cross nobody could live with her. 
 One man boarded with her, but he could 
 not stand it long. She would get the little 
 girl up in the summer at four or five o'clock, 
 and in the winter at six or half-past six, and 
 send her off, without her breakfast, to 
 .Washington Market for fruit. Before she 
 went out, she would get a beating, more or 
 less, for something. Not a day passed 
 without that child getting a beating once or 
 twice. Why, I have seen the old woman 
 whipping her down-stairs with a stick — 
 12 
 
134 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 driving her out of doors in the coldest 
 winter days to sell apples, when the child 
 had nothing on her bare legs, and only an 
 old pair of shoes on, and she only half- 
 dressed. The poor child was crying, and 
 saying it was too cold to go out, and the 
 old woman beat her for saying so. She had 
 to go out every clay, and in all weathers, 
 rain or snow. The girl never got any 
 thing for dinner generally until she came 
 home about four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and then she had to go out again and pick 
 up wood before the old woman would give 
 her any thing warm to eat, and two to one 
 if she did not get a beating before she got 
 through her dinner. The old woman al- 
 ways had a stick to beat her with, and she 
 would catch up any of the wood which lay 
 in the corner, and strike her about the 
 ' shoulders. 
 
 " The poor thing would often cry out, 6 For 
 God's sake, do not kill me !' and sometimes 
 she would get away and run down-stairs, and 
 stay out for hours — afraid to come in. But 
 I never knew the child to do any thing 
 wrong, or to provoke her, and she never 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 135 
 
 would answer her back when she whipped 
 her. The old woman almost always beat 
 her when she came home, because she did 
 not sell enough, or came home too soon, or 
 her apples did not hold out, or for something 
 or other. The old woman used to drink her 
 brandy every day regular, and Maria often 
 enough had to go for it. She would not get 
 drunk, but it made her awfully cross. I've 
 seen her drink it, and I know it was brandy. 
 
 "The poor child was worked almost to 
 death. She was scolded and whipped, morn- 
 ing, noon, and night. I have sometimes 
 been afraid she would kill the child by her 
 abuse ; and I determined, when the gentle- 
 man, the missionary, came here for Maria to 
 go to Sunday-school, to let him know about 
 it; and I told him I would go before a ma- 
 gistrate and make an affidavit. After Maria 
 began to go to Sunday-school, there was not 
 a Sunday morning in which she did not get 
 p a beating before she went. The old woman 
 was always angry to have her go. But when 
 any of the Sunday-school teachers came to 
 see Maria, the old woman was always very 
 pleasant, and glad to see them, and said she 
 
136 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 was herself more than half Protestant. She 
 was saying this to get something. She was 
 always trying to get something from every- 
 body, and always professing to be very poor 
 and suffering. 
 
 " The man who came to see Maria gave 
 her a Bible, and the old woman threw it into 
 the coals and burnt it up. The lady Sun- 
 day-school teachers gave Maria some cloth- 
 ing, and the old woman burnt this up be- 
 cause it came from the Protestants. She 
 pretended to be Catholic, but I don't believe 
 she had any religion. After they took Ma- 
 ria away from her, she said they had taken 
 her away to a bad house, and pretended that 
 was all they wanted of her, and that if she 
 could get away she would come back to her. 
 I told her she was safe enough, I knew. She 
 never went out to sell apples after Maria 
 went away. She stayed home and drank 
 her brandy, until she died, in November. 
 She had twelve dollars in the house when 
 she died, and ninety-four dollars in the bank. 
 I suppose the girl made all this money. 
 She made from three to six and seven shil- 
 lings a-day. All this money her son got. 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 137 
 
 Ho "bought a gold watch and chain, and 
 spent all the rest, and then enlisted in the 
 army. 
 
 " The girl did not dare to complain to any- 
 one about her treatment, because the old 
 woman threatened to beat her if she ever 
 spoke about it. I believe, indeed, sir, that 
 the poor child was at times afraid of her 
 life." 
 
 That half hour with the shoemaker, in the 
 garret, was a pleasant one. He came to this 
 country a few years since, as he said, "to 
 better my condition. They told me this was 
 a very free country, and all that, and I think 
 it is ; I wish I was back." 
 
 His statement showed that the account 
 Maria had given of the old woman's treat- 
 ment of her was not at all exaggerated. 
 Indeed, no one could talk with her without 
 an impression that she was a child of re- 
 markable truthfulness and candour, even 
 when under very great temptation to exag- 
 * gerate trials which had brought her into 
 much notice. She was always reserved in 
 talking of the old woman ; and all the in- 
 formation respecting her cruelty was ob- 
 12* 
 
138 MARIA cheeseman; or, 
 
 tained by repeatedly questioning her. There 
 was also a perfect purity of thought and de- 
 licacy about the child, which was remark- 
 able for one exposed as she had been. In- 
 deed, she seemed free from the ordinary 
 faults of children. 
 
 After she came from the country, when 
 preparing to go to England, she was for some 
 
 three weeks with Miss M , in a family 
 
 with children. Her friends watched her " 
 closely with curiosity, to see what faults she 
 had ; but the lady with whom she was stay- 
 ing said, "I never could find any thing for 
 which to reprove her. She was not in the 
 least deceitful, or quarrelsome, or coarse in ' 
 her habits. She was patient and very in- 
 dustrious, and I was surprised that such a 
 child could be so free from faults/ ' 
 
 "We shall find no explanation of this 
 except in her very early training and associa- 
 tions, the pious example and religious educa- 
 tion she enjoyed, and the prayers of those 
 who loved her. No parents can know the 
 value of these things, until they have seen 
 their children pass, unscathed, through the 
 fiery trials of childhood and youth. There is 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 139 
 
 meaning in the promise, " Train up a child 
 in the way he should go, and when he is old 
 he will not depart from it." 
 
 During the period that Maria lived with 
 Mrs. Dougherty, until the time that she 
 was taken to the Sunday-school, she seems 
 not to have been under the least religious 
 influence or instruction of any kind. She 
 never heard a prayer, never entered a 
 church, never read a book, during the whole 
 time. She hardly heard a voice of kind- 
 ness. The language to which she was ac- 
 customed was the ribaldry of the streets, or 
 the taunts and rebukes of the petulant old 
 woman. 
 
 "We have thus given a brief sketch of " The 
 Candy-girl's" experiences as the little emi- 
 grant, the orphan in the hospital, the wan- 
 derer in the streets, the dweller in the garret 
 and in the cellar, the child of poverty and sick- 
 ness, of loneliness, and almost of despair. 
 Yet how much of sadness and mourning was 
 there deep in the heart of that little orphan 
 child, which she can never tell, which none 
 but God could see ; and yet how bright and 
 true she came out from all these trials and 
 
140 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 temptations — a wonderful example of God's 
 preserving grace and covenant mercy ! " The 
 Lord is thy keeper." "The Lord is thy 
 shade upon thy right hand." " The sun shall 
 not smite thee by day, nor the moon by 
 night." " The Lord shall preserve thee from 
 all evil." "He shall preserve thy soul." 
 " The Lord shall preserve thy going out and 
 thy coming in, from this time forth, and evei* 
 for evermore." 
 
 How faithfully were these promises fulfilled 
 to Maria ! She was exposed to dangers and 
 temptations by day and night. Her soul 
 was in danger. Her religious views were 
 assaulted, yet the Lord preserved her. It 
 was the teaching of her grandmother, and 
 the reading of the Bible, that were the 
 means of preventing her from error and sin. 
 
 child can read this Bible too early, or 
 commit to memory too much of it. Xo 
 parent should undervalue the holy word as a 
 means of guarding and restraining their 
 children in after life. 
 
 " Where withal shall a young man cleanse 
 his way?" "By taking heed thereto ac- 
 cording to thy word." "Thy word is a 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 141 
 
 lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my 
 path/' 
 
 " The entrance of thy word giveth light. 
 It giveth understanding unto the simple" 
 
112 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 home! sweet home! 
 
 Our little wanderer was now about to re- 
 turn to her native shores, to the only home 
 she had ever known. That same hand that 
 had led her over the ocean to this land, 
 which had so mysteriously guided her youth- 
 ful steps through scenes of poverty and 
 wretchedness, which had guarded her from 
 pestilence and sin, and raised her up from the 
 borders of the grave, was now about to lead 
 her back again to her old home, even while 
 yet a child. After all her wanderings and 
 sorrows, she was once more to hear the soft 
 accents of love, and once more to be folded 
 in the arms of parental affection. 
 
 She was to sail in the London packet 
 called " American Congress." The owners of 
 the line generously offered to carry her for 
 nothing, but her grandfather had forwarded 
 sufficient funds to pay her fare. She was to 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 143 
 
 cross the ocean alone, without a protector, 
 but she said she was not at all afraid 
 to go. 
 
 "Wishing to enlist the sympathy of the 
 captain, we went as a friend of Maria' to 
 6ee him, and told him an orphan child was 
 to be committed to his care, and gave him 
 a little of her history. His generous heart 
 warmed, his eye kindled, and we saw 
 he was the man to be her protector. He 
 was told that if on his arrival her friends 
 were not waiting for her, it would be unsafe 
 for her to be left alone in London as she had 
 been on her arrival in New York. He 
 stretched himself up, and his weather-beaten 
 face grew darker, as if indignant at the 
 suggestion : " Never mention it, never men- 
 tion it, sir," said he; "I am a father my- 
 self. I'll not leave the poor girl until I see 
 her safe with that old grandmother. I'll go 
 down to Kent with her myself. I want to 
 ^see those English farmers — they are some 
 of the nicest people in the world. I'll take 
 care of her as if she was my own daughter 
 — never fear me for that." 
 
 The ship was to sail on Tuesday, the 9th 
 
144 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 of January. On the day before, Captain 
 
 W called on Miss M , with whom 
 
 Maria was staying. He wanted to see the 
 child. He said he could not sail until 
 Thursday. 
 
 The delay was a great trial to Maria. She 
 was anxious to go, but did not complain. 
 Yet it was evident this one subject engrossed 
 her whole heart. Poor child! it was no 
 wonder ; — with all the memories of her early 
 childhood and her happy home thronging 
 her mind, in strange contrast with the scenes 
 of want and .suffering from which she had 
 just emerged. 
 
 On Thursday it stormed hard, and she 
 was again doomed to disappointment. The 
 ship could not sail till Friday. The trunk 
 which had been so well packed had been 
 waiting in the hall for three or four days. 
 That little black trunk was a great affair to 
 her. It was her's — full of her things, and 
 she had a memorandum of every article in 
 it. Yet still little presents of books kept 
 coming in with all sorts of kind words on 
 the blank leaf, and each of them found room 
 in that little trunk, and each brought a happy 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 145 
 
 smile to Maria's face. She said she should 
 read them all when she got to England. 
 
 On Friday morning Maria seemed happy 
 as a bird. Our last hours with her were 
 affecting. She had by her gentleness and 
 truthfulness greatly attached all her friends 
 to her. We felt that we were parting with 
 her for years — perhaps forever — or until we 
 should meet beyond the shores of time. The 
 ship was to sail at noon. As we talked to 
 her about meeting her grandfather and 
 grandmother, and of seeing Old England 
 again, her face was radiant w T ith excitement 
 and smiles. Her heart was full of it, so full 
 that it was painful to divert her thoughts to 
 other subjects. She had her bonnet on at 
 ten, and the hour from ten to eleven was a 
 long one. 
 
 A few moments before we started for the 
 ship, the family and a large number of Ma- 
 ria's friends gathered in the parlour, and we 
 opened the Bible, and read from Psalm xci. 
 about that God who is our refuge, our fort- 
 ress, and our habitation, so that no evil will 
 befall us ; who will give his angels charge 
 over us to keep us in all our ways, even upon* 
 
 13 
 
146 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 the mighty deep. And we also read from 
 Psalm cvii. of Him who commandeth and 
 raiseth the stormy winds, which lifteth up 
 the waves thereof — who maketh a storm a 
 calm, so that the waves thereof are still, and 
 who also setteth the poor on high from afflic- 
 tion. We then kneeled in prayer, and com- 
 mitted Maria to the safe-keeping of that God 
 whose protecting hand had shielded her 
 childhood amid the depravities and dangers 
 of this great city. We prayed for her aged 
 grandparents, and for a joyous meeting with 
 them, and especially that the Saviour would 
 make her one of the lambs of his flock. 
 There were present the friend who had first 
 rescued her from the streets ; the lady who 
 had visited her in the wretched garret and 
 taken her to Sunday-school; and many 
 friends of the family, too, with whom she 
 was staying. All felt that she was a child 
 of God's special providence, and that He 
 would care for her still. 
 
 The time had now come to leave for the 
 ship, and the carriage was waiting. Maria 
 
 was to go with Mr. C and another person. 
 
 Miss M did not intend to go. Maria then 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 147 
 
 bade each person farewell, except Miss M , 
 
 who had gone into the hall. When Maria 
 
 came to Miss M , she put her arms around 
 
 her, and burst into tears, saying, " Oh, I wish 
 you would go down with me." The appeal 
 
 could not be resisted, and Miss M , with 
 
 another lady, and the two gentlemen, ac- 
 companied her to the ship, lying off Peck 
 Slip. As they were leaving the house, one 
 of the party asked Maria if there was any 
 one place she would like to see before leav- 
 ing Is ew York. She thought for a moment, 
 and said, 
 
 "I was thinking I would like once more 
 to see the old church.'' 
 
 "You shall see it, by all means," said her 
 
 friend, " and the very spot where Mr. C 
 
 found you on New Year's morning." 
 
 The driver was directed to go through 
 Park Row, and down Beekman Street, to 
 the dock. As she passed that venerable 
 church, she looked out of the window and 
 took her farewell of it. 
 
 How many weary days, months, and even 
 years, had she passed it in her toil ! Yet it 
 was a Beth-el to her. She w^as on this very 
 
148 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 spot when the first faint ray of hope dawned 
 on her dark path. On this corner of the 
 streets she had offered many a feeble prayer 
 while devout worshippers within listened to 
 the voice of earnest eloquence. Both, we 
 trust, were heard in heaven ! 
 
 The two ladies and Mr. C were to go 
 
 down to the Hook on board the vessel with 
 Maria. She seemed most to feel the reality 
 of parting when she came on board the ship, 
 and went into the little dark cabin and 
 smaller state-room. As the lady began to 
 take out some necessary things from her 
 trunk and to put them into her state-room, 
 the tears were filling her eyes ; but she re- 
 pressed them. She now began to feel that 
 she was really going, and going alone. But 
 she was not to go quite alone. Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 P , from Virginia, were also passengers. 
 
 Mrs. P— — was a young married lady. Maria 
 was introduced to her, and enough of her 
 history was told to awaken at once an interest 
 
 in the child. Mrs. P took her on her 
 
 lap, and said, "We will be nice friends, won't 
 we ?" Her sympathy at once won the child. 
 They were friends, and Maria seemed happy 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 149 
 
 again. A steamer towed the ship down the 
 harbour to the Hook. 
 
 Years before, she had come up that beauti- 
 ful bay, and with hope and joy beheld the 
 city. Now, with more hope and joy, she was 
 bidding it farewell. How like a dream the 
 scenes of life must have passed before her ! 
 — long years filled up with sickness, mourn- 
 ing, sorrow, want, toil, and despair. But 
 they are all passed ! The tempest is over. 
 The dark rolling clouds are breaking up. 
 The sunlight is streaming forth upon the 
 mountains and valleys, all greener and fresher 
 for the passing shower, while millions of 
 glittering drops sparkle on every leaf and 
 blade of grass, and all nature smiles with 
 seeming gratitude. Maria is homeward 
 bound, and she is happy. 
 
 " There is a land, of every land the pride, 
 Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside. 
 
 ' < There is a spot of earth supremely blest — 
 A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. 
 
 "Oh! thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, 
 That land thy country, and that spot thy home." 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 Captain W must now become the 
 
 biographer. He says : " The passage was long 
 and severe. We were over forty-five days 
 out, and arrived in the latter part of Febru- 
 ary. I had a good opportunity of seeing 
 Maria. She was cheerful, gentle, and af- 
 fectionate, and her manners w^ere remark- 
 ably good for a child of her opportunities. 
 I never saw any thing wrong in the child 
 during the whole passage. When we ar- 
 rived at Gravesend, Maria and myself left 
 the ship, and went up to London by railroad. 
 And after I had finished my Custom-house 
 business, and we had dined, (for you know 
 we sailors don't live without eating,) we 
 started, about four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 on the South-eastern Railway, for Sellinge, 
 in Kent. We found that we could not get 
 within nine miles of Sellinge, that night. 
 
 When we arrived at Ashford, I procured a 
 private conveyance to take us to Mr. Cheese- 
 man's. It was dark and cold, and Maria 
 said little. As we drove on, we made in- 
 quiries for Mr. Cheeseman's house; and 
 when, as I supposed, we were near to the 
 house, I asked Maria if she would know the 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 151 
 
 farm. She said she thought she could re- 
 member it; that it was a large square house, 
 with a garden around it. We now ex- 
 amined every house as we passed it, till, at 
 last, Maria cried out, 'There it is! that's 
 it!' 
 
 " We got out of the carriage and went into 
 a large front yard, and found a man there 
 with a lantern, who told us it was Mr. 
 Cheeseman's house. We went in at a side 
 door, which opened into an entry leading 
 to a front room. And as we opened it, 
 an elderly woman, tall and thin, but very 
 active, was passing through the entry, with 
 a light in her hand. Maria sprang forward, 
 crying, 
 
 " ' Oh, grandmother !' 
 
 "And the old lady received her in her 
 arms, and exclaimed, 
 
 " ' Why, Maria, my dear child, is it you?' 
 
 " In a moment, they passed from the entry 
 into a front room, and Maria rushed up to a 
 stout, grey-headed man, in small-clothes, 
 with long stockings and knee-buckies, sitt- 
 ing in an arm-chair, saying, 
 
 " 'Oh, grandfather!' 
 
152 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 "And the old man started up, opened his 
 arms, and clasped her to his bosom, sobbing, 
 
 " ' My child ! My child ! My lost child ! ? 
 
 " And he bowed his head upon her shoul- 
 der, and they both wept together. 
 
 " After the first rapture of meeting, Maria 
 sat down between the old folks ; and then 
 they looked at her in a sort of amazement. 
 But the old lady could not keep her hands 
 off, but took hold of Maria, and, looking 
 earnestly in her face, said, 
 
 " ' She is like her mother ! She is like her P 
 and then there was silence." 
 
 Who can tell the joy and sorrow of these 
 moments ? 
 
 "Life has moments bright as brief, 
 
 When the bliss of years, 
 Pressed into one golden drop, 
 
 Sparkles and exhales in tears. 
 Such the hour — so passing sweet — 
 When true hearts, long severed, meet. 
 
 "Life has seasons when an hour 
 
 Lengthens to an age of woe ; 
 When the stream of time sweeps on 
 
 Silently, and dark, and slow. 
 Such the hour — so dark, so lone — 
 When the loved are dead and gone." 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 153 
 
 " After this scene of meeting was fairly 
 over," continues the captain, "the old lady 
 began herself to get us a supper, and if I 
 had been a prince, I could not have been 
 treated better. She was very smart, and 
 went about the house like a girl of fifteen. 
 She put upon the table every thing the 
 house afforded. After tea, we talked till 
 bed-time, and the burden of the conversa- 
 tion was the surprising fact that entire 
 strangers should have cared and laboured 
 for the deliverance of their grandchild. 
 They could not understand it. They were 
 
 profuse in their thanks to Mr. C and 
 
 Miss M , Maria's first and latest friends. 
 
 Their friendship for her was a great wonder 
 to them, and they seemed overcome with 
 gratitude. They were working farmers, 
 'and,' said the old lady, 6 thank God, we are 
 very comfortably off. I do my own work, 
 although I am seventy-three years old ; and 
 now I have Maria to help me, we shall get 
 along very nicely. I can teach her as I 
 used to, and she will stay with us, and be 
 a comfort in our old age.' 
 
 " When bed-time came, Maria, after kissing 
 
154 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 her grandfather good-night, went up stairs 
 with Mrs. Cheeseman. It was the room 
 which, five or six years before, she oc- 
 cupied." 
 
 Is it too much to suppose that the} 7 
 kneeled together again at the foot of that 
 little bed, and once more prayed to the God 
 of the fatherless, who had never forsaken the 
 little pilgrim ? And how sincere must have 
 been the praise and gratitude arising from 
 those two hearts — the aged and the young ! 
 On this very spot, years before, the one had 
 taught the other to lisp the words of prayer, 
 — the same prayer which a thousand times 
 in after years, in sorrow and sickness, in the 
 cellar and garret, in the hospital and in the 
 streets — had gone up from her young and 
 burdened heart to her Saviour and her God, 
 and had been heard and answered in heaven, 
 his holy dwelling-place. 
 
 But we must leave the little candy-girl to- 
 night, and let her go to sleep, after the good 
 old grandmother embraces her tenderly and 
 kisses her good-night. 
 
 We may be sure that our returned wan- 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 155 
 
 derer was up in good season the next morn- 
 ing, as the first rays of the sun darted cheer- 
 fully into her bed-room. And her heart must 
 have throbbed with emotion as she opened 
 her window for the fresh morning air, and 
 looked out upon those familiar olcL trees 
 overhanging the street — upon the houses in 
 the distance — upon old Barrow Hill, bathed 
 in the morning sunlight — upon the meadows 
 where the green grass was just ready to 
 spring up, with that quiet little river run- 
 ning through them, its glittering surface un- 
 broken except where the budding w T illows 
 drooped lovingly on it. 
 
 How familiar each object, and yet how 
 strange ! How the whole scene calls back 
 other days ! How like an old friend every 
 object appears, and seems to welcome her 
 return! "It is my home! my own dear 
 home!" her heart whispers. 
 
 Captain W says that, after break- 
 fast, the old lady sat down and talked with 
 him about Maria, and told him that they 
 often heard from her and her mother before 
 her mother's death, but that since then they 
 had lost all trace of her ; that they wished 
 
156 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN; OR, 
 
 to have her return to England, and they em- 
 ployed a friend of theirs to look her up, but 
 they never could find her or hear of her, 
 and that at last they gave her up as dead 
 . or lost. 
 
 " 6 And now,' said the old lady, 'we shall 
 be happy. Maria can live with us now we 
 are getting old. Maria's mother was not 
 my own daughter : she was my step-daughter; 
 but I have loved her as much as if she were 
 my own child. I have no children of my own, 
 but I have made Mr. Cheeseman's children 
 mine, and I have tried to be a good mother 
 to them.' 
 
 " When Mrs. Cheeseman and Maria went 
 out to clear away the breakfast things, I 
 took occasion to say — 
 
 " ' Mr. Cheeseman, I have got some money 
 for you/ 
 
 " ' Money for me ! What does that 
 mean ?' 
 
 u ' Why, sir, you sent out twenty-five 
 pounds to fit out Maria for home and to pay 
 her passage, and her friends in New York 
 have, after paying all her expenses, sent 
 back by me twenty-eight dollars, which they 
 
THE CANDY-GIRL. 
 
 157 
 
 directed me to pay to you, and here it is in 
 American gold." 
 
 A long parley ensued, and the old man pro- 
 posed several ways of disposing of the money 
 which he absolutely refused to keep. It was 
 at length determined that it should be sent 
 back to New York, to be deposited with 
 Miss M , Maria's early friend, for bene- 
 volent purposes. This was done, and the 
 amount was divided between the "Home' 7 
 and the two Sunday-schools in which the 
 poor child had received shelter and instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 And here we leave the subject of our 
 narrative. By the good hand of God upon 
 her, she has been preserved in all her wan- 
 derings, and returned in safety to her rela- 
 tives and a comfortable and peaceful home, 
 where we trust she will devote herself— body, 
 soul and spirit — to the service of Him who 
 has been her helper and deliverer. 
 
 The history of her childhood is a beautiful 
 and impressive illustration of the guiding 
 and protecting providence of God, and a 
 most emphatic testimony to the value of 
 those institutions of benevolence which af- 
 
 14 
 
158 
 
 MARIA CHEESEMAN. 
 
 ford sympathy to the suffering, protection 
 to the friendless, and instruction to the 
 ignorant. 
 
 May they be multiplied a hundred-fold, 
 and never lack the means of accomplishing 
 their beneficent ends ! 
 
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2 
 
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AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 3 
 
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4 
 
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AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 
 
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 THE HIVE AND ITS WONDEES. 
 
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 MEMOIR OF LITTLE JOSEPHINE. 
 
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 36 pp. 9 cts. 
 
 THE LITTLE QUEEN. 
 
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 LOOK UP; 
 
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 LITTLE JIM, THE RAG MERCHANT. 
 
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 LIFE IN THE WEST; 
 
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 LYNN'S CREEK; 
 
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 1* 
 
6 
 
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 FOURTH DAY IN MARY CARROWS SCHOOL. 
 
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 MODERN LONDON. 
 
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 OLD JAMES, THE IRISH PEDLAR. 
 
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AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 
 
 7 
 
 MACDONALD; 
 
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 LIGHT ON LITTLE GRAVES. 
 
 With beautiful Frontispiece from an original design. 
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 THE NESTORIANS OF PERSIA: 
 
 L HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OP THAT PEOPLE, AND OP MIS- 
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 NESTORIAN MASSACRES BY THE KOORDS. 
 
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 PARTING GIFT TO A CHRISTIAN FRIEND. 
 
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 DR. PLUMER'S PLAIN AND SIMPLE ADDRESSES TO 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 126 pp. 18mo. 20 cts.— in muslin 22 cts. 
 
 THE FOLLY OF PROCRASTINATION. 
 
 in original story, with an original Frontispiece. 54 pp. 18mo. 12 eti 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THOMAS COOKE PAUL, 
 
 OF PETERSBURG, (VA.) 
 
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 ROSA'S CHILDHOOD; 
 
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 ELLEN SINCLAIR; 
 
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s 
 
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 SUNDAY-SCHOOL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
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 TRADES DESCRIBED AND IMPROVED. 
 
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 SICKNESS IMPROVED. 
 
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 THE TURNING POINT. 
 
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 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 
 
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AMERICAN" SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 9 
 
 THE FRETFUL GIRL. 
 
 Ffce title ini::a:r- tie n* t: : nc cue :-an tell to vboa 
 
 it applies, or what mav r.-e '.earned frcm it. wichou: reeling fc. 
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 SU!TNY SIDE; 
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 THE TALKING BIBLE, 
 
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 HEXRY WOOD: 
 
 C?~ TH2 ~5T 5'IZ"? Z>" IZI I-:~:~i_%C F.CAS. 
 
 "With nro original Enrravinrs 
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 WHEN I WAS YOUNG ; 
 
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10 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
 
 popular t&eafcing. 
 
 THE VILLAGE AND FAMILY LIBRARY. 
 
 By a liberal arrangement with the London Religious Tract 
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 nish to the people of the United States, a very cheap series of 
 very valuable books for popular reading. 
 
 THE ARCTIC REGIONS; 
 
 THEIR SITUATION, APPEARANCE, CLIMATE, AND ZOOLOGY. 
 
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 COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE IN ANIMALS — THE 
 D AND THE ARM. 
 
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 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. 
 
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 VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH SCRIPTURAL USAOES. 
 
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AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 11 
 
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 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
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 IDUMJEA. 
 
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12 
 
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AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. 13 
 
 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 
 
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 NINEVEH AND THE TIGRIS. 
 
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 FROM THE RISE OP TELE CULDEES TO THE TIMES OP LUTHER. 
 
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14 
 
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AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION. ]§ 
 
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 PHILADELPHIA: 
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4