polishes the fruit occasionally with a rag that she carries about her
person (let us humbly hope it is not her handkerchief!) and now and
then breaks into a double shuffle to dissipate the chill that invades
her ill-clothed frame. What taste of joy do you suppose that child
ever got out of the pewter cup the fates pour for her? Does she ever
find time to run about with other children, playing the games which the
generations hand down from one to the other? Does she ever play "tag,"
or "gray wolf," or "I spy?" Does she ever swing in a hammock like
other girls when the days are long and blithe and sweet, as free from
care as a cloud or a butterfly? Does life hold for her one sparkle in
its poor cup of wine, one flavor that is not sordid and low and mean?
You say it is easy to sit here all day selling apples, and wonder why I
hold this sallow-faced girl up for special pity. To be sure there is
no hardship in the part of her life visible to us. But in her dull
soul lurks constantly the shadow of an ever present fear. The poor
child is accountable to a cruel master, whether father or mother it
matters little, who beats her each night that she returns to her
wretched home with a scanty showing of nickels; and the consciousness
of dull times and slow sales keeps her in a state of trepidation, which
in you or me, my dear, would soon lapse into "nervous prostration," a
big doctor's fee, and a change of air. Yet mark my words, if the
dark-browed liberator of sorrow's captives were to proffer my little
fruit peddler the exchange of death for all this wearing apprehension
and constant toil, do you think she would accept the transfer? Not
she. The "captain" out snow-balling to-day in her love-guarded home,
with never a fear to shadow her sunny eyes, nor a big sorrow to start
the showery tears, would not plead harder for the boon of longer living.