She Was Good for Nothing

								
The mayor stood at the open window. He looked smart, for his
shirt-frill, in which he had stuck a breast-pin, and his ruffles, were
very fine. He had shaved his chin uncommonly smooth, although he had
cut himself slightly, and had stuck a piece of newspaper over the
place. "Hark 'ee, youngster!" cried he.

The boy to whom he spoke was no other than the son of a poor
washer-woman, who was just going past the house. He stopped, and
respectfully took off his cap. The peak of this cap was broken in
the middle, so that he could easily roll it up and put it in his
pocket. He stood before the mayor in his poor but clean and
well-mended clothes, with heavy wooden shoes on his feet, looking as
humble as if it had been the king himself.

"You are a good and civil boy," said the mayor. "I suppose your
mother is busy washing the clothes down by the river, and you are
going to carry that thing to her that you have in your pocket. It is
very bad for your mother. How much have you got in it?"

"Only half a quartern," stammered the boy in a frightened voice.

"And she has had just as much this morning already?"

"No, it was yesterday," replied the boy.

"Two halves make a whole," said the mayor. "She's good for
nothing. What a sad thing it is with these people. Tell your mother
she ought to be ashamed of herself. Don't you become a drunkard, but I
expect you will though. Poor child! there, go now."

The boy went on his way with his cap in his hand, while the wind
fluttered his golden hair till the locks stood up straight. He
turned round the corner of the street into the little lane that led to
the river, where his mother stood in the water by her washing bench,
beating the linen with a heavy wooden bar. The floodgates at the
mill had been drawn up, and as the water rolled rapidly on, the sheets
were dragged along by the stream, and nearly overturned the bench,
so that the washer-woman was obliged to lean against it to keep it
steady. "I have been very nearly carried away," she said; "it is a
good thing that you are come, for I want something to strengthen me.
It is cold in the water, and I have stood here six hours. Have you
brought anything for me?"

The boy drew the bottle from his pocket, and the mother put it
to her lips, and drank a little.

"Ah, how much good that does, and how it warms me," she said;
"it is as good as a hot meal, and not so dear. Drink a little, my boy;
you look quite pale; you are shivering in your thin clothes, and
autumn has really come. Oh, how cold the water is! I hope I shall
not be ill. But no, I must not be afraid of that. Give me a little
more, and you may have a sip too, but only a sip; you must not get
used to it, my poor, dear child." She stepped up to the bridge on
which the boy stood as she spoke, and came on shore. The water dripped
from the straw mat which she had bound round her body, and from her
gown. "I work hard and suffer pain with my poor hands," said she, "but
I do it willingly, that I may be able to bring you up honestly and
truthfully, my dear boy."

At the same moment, a woman, rather older than herself, came
towards them. She was a miserable-looking object, lame of one leg, and
with a large false curl hanging down over one of her eyes, which was
blind. This curl was intended to conceal the blind eye, but it made
the defect only more visible. She was a friend of the laundress, and
was called, among the neighbors, "Lame Martha, with the curl." "Oh,
you poor thing; how you do work, standing there in the water!" she
exclaimed. "You really do need something to give you a little
warmth, and yet spiteful people cry out about the few drops you take."
And then Martha repeated to the laundress, in a very few minutes,
all that the mayor had said to her boy, which she had overheard; and
she felt very angry that any man could speak, as he had done, of a
mother to her own child, about the few drops she had taken; and she
was still more angry because, on that very day, the mayor was going to
have a dinner-party, at which there would be wine, strong, rich
wine, drunk by the bottle. "Many will take more than they ought, but
they don't call that drinking! They are all right, you are good for
nothing indeed!" cried Martha indignantly.

"And so he spoke to you in that way, did he, my child?" said the
washer-woman, and her lips trembled as she spoke. "He says you have
a mother who is good for nothing. Well, perhaps he is right, but he
should not have said it to my child. How much has happened to me
from that house!"

"Yes," said Martha; "I remember you were in service there, and
lived in the house when the mayor's parents were alive; how many years
ago that is. Bushels of salt have been eaten since then, and people
may well be thirsty," and Martha smiled. "The mayor's great
dinner-party to-day ought to have been put off, but the news came
too late. The footman told me the dinner was already cooked, when a
letter came to say that the mayor's younger brother in Copenhagen is
dead."

"Dead!" cried the laundress, turning pale as death.

"Yes, certainly," replied Martha; "but why do you take it so
much to heart? I suppose you knew him years ago, when you were in
service there?"

"Is he dead?" she exclaimed. "Oh, he was such a kind, good-hearted
man, there are not many like him," and the tears rolled down her
cheeks as she spoke. Then she cried, "Oh, dear me; I feel quite ill:
everything is going round me, I cannot bear it. Is the bottle
empty?" and she leaned against the plank.

"Dear me, you are ill indeed," said the other woman. "Come,
cheer up; perhaps it will pass off. No, indeed, I see you are really
ill; the best thing for me to do is to lead you home."

"But my washing yonder?"

"I will take care of that. Come, give me your arm. The boy can
stay here and take care of the linen, and I'll come back and finish
the washing; it is but a trifle."

The limbs of the laundress shook under her, and she said, "I
have stood too long in the cold water, and I have had nothing to eat

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