California Sketches, Second Series | Page 2

girl has been superior to the average California boy. The boy
gets his bias from the street; the girl, from her mother at home. The boy

plunges into the life that surges around him; the girl only feels the
touch of its waves as they break upon the embankments of home. The
boy gets more of the father; the girl gets more of the mother. This may
explain their relative superiority. The school for girls was started on
condition that it should be free, the proposed teacher refusing all
compensation. That part of the arrangement was a failure, for at the end
of the first month every little girl brought a handful of money, and laid
it on the teacher's desk. It must have been a concerted matter. That
quiet, unselfish woman had suddenly become a money-maker in spite
of herself. (Use was found for the coin in the course of events.) The
school was opened with a Psalm, a prayer, and a little song in which the
sweet voices of the little Jewish, Spanish, German, Irish, and American
maidens united heartily. Dear children! they are scattered now. Some of
them have died, and some of them have met with what is worse than
death. There was one bright Spanish girl, slender, graceful as a willow,
with the fresh Castilian blood mantling her cheeks, her bright eyes
beaming with mischief and affection. She was a beautiful child, and her
winning ways made her a pet in the little school. But surrounded as the
bright, beautiful girl was, Satan had a mortgage on her from her birth,
and her fate was too dark and sad to be told in these pages. She
inherited evil condition, and perhaps evil blood, and her evil life
seemed to be inevitable. Poor child of sin, whose very beauty was thy
curse, let the curtain fall upon thy fate and name; we leave thee in the
hands of the pitying Christ, who hath said, "Where little is given little
will be required." Little was given thee in the way of opportunity, for it
was a mother's hand that bound thee with the chains of evil.
Among the children that came to that remarkable academy on the hill
was little Mary Kinneth, a thin, delicate child, with mild blue eyes,
flaxen hair, a peach complexion, and the blue veins on her temples that
are so often the sign of delicacy of organization and the presage of
early death. Mike Kinneth,--her father, was a drinking Irishman, a
good-hearted fellow when sober, but pugnacious and disposed to beat
his wife when drunk. The poor woman came over to see me one day.
She had been crying, and there was an ugly bruise on her cheek.
"Your riverence will excuse me," she said, curtseying, "but I wish you
would come over and spake a word to me husband. Mike's a kind, good
craythur except when he is dhrinking, but then he is the very Satan

himself."
"Did he give you that bruise on your face, Mrs. Kinneth?"
"Yis; he came home last night mad with the whisky, and was breaking
ivery thing in the house. I tried to stop him, and thin he bate me--O! he
never did that before! My heart is broke!"
Here the poor woman broke down and cried, hiding her face in her
apron.
"Little Mary was asleep, and she waked up frightened and crying to see
her father in such a way. Seeing the child seemed to sober him a little,
and he stumbled on to the bed, and fell asleep. He was always kind to
the child, dhrunk or sober. And there is a good heart in him if he will
only stay away from the dhrink."
"Would he let me talk to him?"
"Yis; we belong to the old Church, but there is no priest here now, and
the kindness your lady has shown to little Mary has softened his heart
to ye both. And I think he feels a little sick and ashamed this mornin',
and he will listen to kind words now if iver."
I went to see Mike, and found him half-sick and in a penitent mood. He
called me "Father Fitzgerald," and treated me with the utmost
politeness and deference. I talked to him about little Mary, and his
warm Irish heart opened to me at once.
"She is a good child, your riverence, and shame on the father that
would hurt or disgrace her!"
The tears stood in Mike's eyes as he spoke the words.
"All the trouble comes from the whisky. Why not give it up?"
"By the help of God I will!" said Mike, grasping my hand with energy.
And he did. I confess that the result of my visit exceeded my hopes.
Mike kept away from the