Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/125

Rh companions used to assemble to guzzle all day long. Hawkins was one of this set; and although he cursed it, and cursed himself for his weakness in going there, yet it clung to him like a curse, and every day he went there, and only came thence when he was no longer able to stand; and late in the evening, or in the night, staggered home, often falling on the steps, where he must have remained lying and have perished of cold and wretchedness had it not been for his daughter, little Hannah. She sate up till she heard him coming home, and then went out to meet him and helped him up the steps; and when he fell down and she was not able to raise him, she carried down pillows and a bed-cover and made him a bed where he lay, doing all in her power to make him comfortable, and then lay down beside him. The wife, who in her despair had grown weary of striving with him, endeavoured by her own labour to maintain herself and the other younger children. Little Hannah, however, only ten years old, did not grow weary, but still watched over her father and devoted to him her childish affection. When he in the morning awoke out of his drunkenness, he used immediately to send the little girl out to get him some brandy, and she did as she was bid when her prayers could not prevail with him to abstain. She succeeded only in awakening in him a yet stronger sense of his misery and the need there was for him to forget it. He cursed himself for being so unworthy a father to such a child, and he compelled the child to give him the drink which would drown his misery. And when he by means of the fresh, fiery liquor, was revived and invigorated so that he could stand and walk, he again went to the ale-house.

Such was his life for a long time; a lengthened chain of misery and self-accusation, interrupted merely by fresh debauch. The family had sunk into the depth of poverty, and each succeeding day only added to their