City Sparrows And Who Fed Them

CONTENTS I. THE SKY GARRET 5 PACK II. THE BATTLE OF LIFE 19 III. A SERMON ABOUT SPARROWS 29 IV. TROUBLED WATERS 42 V. THE GATE OF MERCY 55 VI. PATIENCE 76 vii. NOT A WRECK 89 718726 Contents. VIII. A BIRD WITHOUT A NEST PAGE 104 IX. CHRISTMAS CHEER 116 X. HATHERLEIGH 127 XI. COUSIN LILIAN 141 XII. WELCOME HOME 156 XIII. MAY DAYS 168 XIV. WHAT THE BIRDS WOULD TELL US ... 178 CITY AND WHO FED THEM, CHAPTER I. THE SKY-GARRET. survey of the interior in general. 2 PLEASE, half an ounce of tea, two farthing dips, and a halfpenny herring. Such was the im- portant order given in a childs shrill treble. The little speaker find- ing the shop filled to overflowing, and that she was not likely to be attended to for some time, rested herself against a dirty fish barrel, and commenced 6 City Sparrows. The stock of articles exposed for sale first occupied her attention. Tempting they seemed to hungry eyes, and the incongruous medley did not appear strange to her. Candles and cheese, bacon, onions, and stale eggs butter, fish, bread, fat skimmings and treacle thimbles, nuts and whitening tobacco, tea, pipes, and snuff soap and potatoes a row of green glass bottles, containing various kinds ofunwholesome looking sweeties a box of dirty tumbled arti- ficial flowers, and a dish full of round dabs of half-baked flower and water, sprinkled with black dots, and dignified by the name of cur- rant buns. These were the principal articles that caught the childs eye. The remainder of the stores are too various to be mentioned, for much in a little was evidently the motto of the small general corner shop. Zettas keen black eyes eagerly watched the mistress of the shop, a stout, good-tempered looking slattern of awoman, in a dirty nonde- script coloured gown and black cap who, possessing only one pair of hands, found it hard work to attend to so many customers at once, especially as several little half-clothed children were sprawling about the floor in the filth and confusion. Sin, care, and want were stamped on the The Sky-Garret. 7 features of too many of the squalid-looking buyers, among whom stood a woman, pale, haggard, and wretched, with almost the frenzy of despair in her deep-set eyes, as she cjutched a bundle of rags to her breast to stifle the infants weary wailing, and flung down some coppers with an angry toss. A man stood near, scowling sullenly, a picture of abject poverty and wickedness as he staggered forward, elbowing his way towards the counter. Others there were who came and went, too numerous to describe, young and old, differing in some degree from one another, but all poorandwretchedlooking enough to make ones heart ache to think of the various histories and homes which must attach to each. Little Zettas feet grew blue and cold, as she crossed and uncrossed them, waiting for her turn to come. The small, pinched face did not seem as if it belonged to a child of nine years old, but the tiny figure betokened a growth checked long ago. There was no fresh up-springing of joyous life about her, no charm of childhood lying around the fragile form but hers is by no means an uncommon, case. Such a sight is to be met vith every day, in a walk through any of our crowded cities, and thousands of child- ren live thus, uncared for and unloved, knowing 8 City Sparrows. little of this world, except that it is a place to toil and suffer in, and with neither knowledge nor care of the world tocome. Her turn to be served came at last, and gathering up her three small packets, she left the shop. It was a dreary afternoon of mist and rain, and through the fog the tall blackened buildings were barely distinguishable...