Driven Back to Eden
By Edward Payson Roe.
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This volume
is lovingly dedicated to
“Johnnie.”
Months since, with much doubt and diffidence, I began this simple story. I had never before written expressly for young people, and I knew that the honest little critics could not be beguiled with words which did not tell an interesting story. How far I have succeeded, the readers of this volume, and of the “St. Nicholas” magazine, wherein the tale appeared as a serial, alone can answer.
I have portrayed no actual experience, but have sought to present one which might be verified in real life. I have tried to avoid all that would be impossible or even improbable. The labors performed by the children in the story were not unknown to my own hands, in childhood, nor would they form tasks too severe for many little hands now idle in the cities.
The characters are all imaginary; the scenes, in the main, are real: and I would gladly lure other families from tenement flats into green pastures.
Driven Back to Eden
I
A Problem
“Where are the children?”
“They can’t be far away,” replied my wife, looking up from her preparations for supper. “Bobsey was here a moment ago. As soon as my back’s turned he’s out and away. I haven’t seen Merton since he brought his books from school, and I suppose Winnie is upstairs with the Daggetts.”
“I wish, my dear, you could keep the children at home more,” I said, a little petulantly.
“I wish you would go and find them for me now, and tomorrow take my place—for just one day.”
“Well, well,” I said, with a laugh that had no mirth in it; “only one of your wishes stands much chance of being carried out. I’ll find the children now if I can without the aid of the police. Mousie, do you feel stronger tonight?”
These words were spoken to a pale girl of fourteen, who appeared to be scarcely more than twelve, so diminutive was her frame.
“Yes, papa,” she replied, a faint smile flitting like a ray of light across her features. She always said she was better, but never got well. Her quiet ways and tones had led to the household name of “Mousie.”
As I was descending the narrow stairway I was almost overthrown by a torrent of children pouring down from the flats above. In the dim light of a gas burner I saw that Bobsey was one of the reckless atoms. He had not heard my voice in the uproar, and before I could reach him, he with the others had burst out at the street door and gone tearing toward the nearest corner. It seemed that he had slipped away in order to take part in a race, and I found him “squaring off” at a bigger boy who had tripped him up. Without a word I carried him home, followed by the jeers and laughter of the racers, the girls making their presence known in
