Page:Irish In America.djvu/238

216 association. Possibly it was the mother's courage that failed her as she glanced at the flock of little ones who clustered around her, or timidly clung to her skirts, and she thought of the new dangers and further perils that awaited them; and it was her maternal influence that was flung into the trembling balance against the country and in favour of the city. Or employment was readily found for one of the girls, or one or two of the boys, and things looked so hopeful in the fine place that all thoughts of the fresh, breezy, healthful plain or hill-side were shut out at that supreme moment of the emigrant's destiny; though many a time after did he and they long for one breath of pure air, as they languished in the stifling heat of a summer in a tenement house. Or the pioneer of the family—most likely a young girl—had found good employment, and, with the fruits of her honest toil, had gradually brought out brothers and sisters, father and mother, for whose companionship her heart ever yearned; and possibly her affection was stronger than her prudence, or she knew nothing of the West and its limitless resources. Or sickness, that had followed the emigrant s family across the ocean, fastened upon some member of the group as they touched the soil for which they had so ardently prayed; and though the fever or the cholera did not destroy a precious life, it did the almost as precious opportunity of a better future! the spring of that energy which was sufficient to break asunder the ties and habits of previous years—sufficient for flight from home and country—was broken; and those who faced America in high hope were thence forth added to the teeming population of a city to which class, it might be painful to speculate.

It is easy enough to explain why and how those who should not have remained in the great cities did so; but it is not so easy to depict the evils which have flowed, which daily flow, which, unhappily for the race, must continue to and from the pernicious tendency of the Irish peasant to