it was a dreary, wet october day, and drawing towards the twilight. the dull leaden-looking sky, the wet slippery pavements, the chilly, cross, uncomfortable passengers, gave to even the brightest and most cheerful streets of the great city a very dismal look; and, as for the meaner ones, with their rows of dreary little shops and tumble-down houses, their reeking gutters and dripping wayfarers, they were utterly forlorn.
in one of the meanest of these forlorn streets, in the back attic of one of these tumble-down houses, a little girl sat looking out at the window. it was not a pleasant prospect in the brightest of weather, that little crowded court, upon which everybody’s[pg 8] back-door opened, and where everybody’s rubbish was collected; but the child was not looking at the court. neither did she seem to be looking at the sky, though the little pale face was turned wistfully upward; she rather seemed to be thinking intently upon something which occupied all her mind, and shut out for the moment the dreary court below, the dismal sky above, and even the poor little room around her.
a very poor little room it was, indeed,—its only furniture being a ragged, ill-made bed, a rickety stand, two broken chairs, and an old painted chest, near which a rusty stovepipe came up through the floor and passed out again at the low roof. but all the room was brightened somehow by a group of four merry, rosy children, who sat upon this chest, their little bare legs dangling, and their damp garments steaming in the heat, laughing and chattering together in a queer mixture of german and english, which none but an emigrant’s child could understand.
“bert!” cried the elder of the two boys, glancing towards the window; “what are you looking for, bert?—the moon?”
[pg 9]
the children all laughed at this sally, but “bert” paid no attention; seeing which, the boy sprang down from the chest and, with a vigorous pull at the flaxen curls, turned the wistful face round towards him. “bert!” said he, “don’t you know, if we don’t pick the rags soon, it’ll be quite dark, and then moses will be shut up, and we’ll get nothing for das brod to-morrow? wake up! wake up!”
the girl made no answer, but, with a weary sigh, picked up an old basket filled with wet rubbish, and, turning the contents out upon the floor, began, with her brother’s help, to sort them carefully into separate little heaps; for bertha weisser, my dear children, the dreaming girl by the window, and the heroine of my little story, was nothing more nor less than a poor little german rag-picker.
poor and little as she was, however, bertha had arrived at a dignity which few of my young readers have reached, i hope; for bertha was the head of this little household,—the one whom alone all the children were bound to “mind,” and to whom also, alas! they were bound to look for their daily bread;[pg 10] for berty’s father had died at sea, and her mother, not taking kindly to the foreign land, had pined away soon afterward, leaving her helpless family to get their own living as best they could.
and the best way bertha could think of—for she was not very wise, being only eleven years old—was, to gather the rags and papers, the old bits of iron and copper, and nails and other rubbish, from the gutters, and sell them to moses, an old jew who lived near her lodging; or else sometimes to sweep the crossings with a stump of broom, looking the while so forlorn and piteous that kind passengers, when they were not in too great haste, would fling her a penny.
this was a very poor way to get a living, as you may suppose; and a very poor living berty would have gotten by it even if she could have spent all her earnings upon herself, which was by no means the case; for there were lina, and gottlieb, and rosa, and little fritz, the baby, all younger and therefore more helpless than herself; and berty must care for them all; for had she not promised her dead mother, and were they not her[pg 11] little family, the only ones this side the broad ocean who had kindred blood of hers in their veins?
to be sure, old biddy flanagan, to whom the house belonged, let them have the back attic, where their mother had died, rent-free, because, as she said, it was but a poor place, and she’d no heart to turn out “the motherless orphants”; then, too, gottlieb was growing a sturdy lad, with very sharp eyes for old nails and horse-shoes; and besides, the housepeople often gave fritz a penny when they met him toddling about the passages; for fritz was a pretty baby,—bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, and sweet enough, in spite of his rags, to open the hearts of people less kind than biddy flanagan’s poor lodgers. and beyond all this,—which berty counted great good-fortune,—an old lady in the next street, who had known their mother in the dear old fatherland, sent them every week a full meal of broken victuals. so berty thought this world a very kind world, though her poor little heart was full, from morning till night, with care for die kleinen, as she lovingly called the children in her pleasant german tongue.
[pg 12]
and berty’s heart had been fuller than usual these few weeks past; for, besides all the care, it had held a great wish in it,—a wish that filled it almost to bursting; and yet this wish was such a very impossible one, that berty could think of but one way—and that a very impossible way—of getting it fulfilled:—“if but a fairy would come along,—a fairy godmother such as mrs. flanagan sometimes told them about, when she was good-natured and not too busy,—and offer bert one of three wishes; o then!” but new york was not “ould ireland,” as biddy often assured them, and so, alas! the fairy never came. still the wish held its place, and swelled the poor child’s heart all the more, perhaps, that she never told it to any one.
sometimes she would lie awake far into the night, staring with wide-open eyes at the blank darkness of her attic, hugging little fritz in her arms, and thinking what if she had a fairy godmother, and what if she should come and bring the wish, until all the darkness was full of glorious visions, and poor little berty, the german rag-picker, lying[pg 13] there upon her bed of straw, in biddy flanagan’s back attic, dreamed dreams as sweet as any which visit the soft, guarded pillows of you happy children who fall asleep with father’s good-night blessings in your ears, and mother’s good-night kisses on your lips. yes, the dear heavenly father, who bends so lovingly from his eternal throne to listen to your evening prayer, heard berty’s german vaterunser also, and watched over her, perhaps, all the more tenderly because she had no one else.
