Cast Adrift

CHAPTER I. The unwelcome babe – The defrauded young mother – The struggle between life and death – “Your baby is in heaven” – A brief retrospect – A marriage for social position – An ambitious wife and a disappointed husband – The young daughter – The matrimonial market – The Circassian slaves of modern society – The highest bidder – Disappearance – The old sad story – Secret marriage – The letters – Disappointed ambition – Interview between the parents – The mother’s purpose – “Baffled, but not defeated” – The father’s surprise – The returned daughter – Forgiven – “I am not going away again, father dear” – Insecurity and distrust

CHAPTER II. The hatred of a bad woman – Mrs. Dinneford’s plans for the destruction of Granger – Starting in business – Plots of Mrs. Dinneford and Freeling – The discounted notes – The trap – Granger’s suspicions aroused – Forgery – Mrs. Dinneford relentless – The arrest – Fresh evidence of crime upon Granger’s person – The shock to Edith – “That night her baby was born”

CHAPTER III. “It is a splendid boy” – A convenient, non-interfering family doctor – Cast adrift – Into the world in a basket, unnamed and disowned – Edith’s second struggle back to life – Her mind a blank – Granger convicted of forgery – Seeks to gain knowledge of his child – The doctor’s evasion and ignorance – An insane asylum instead of State’s prison – Edith’s slow return to intelligence – “There’s something I can’t understand, mother” – “Where is my baby?” – “What of George?” – No longer a child, but a broken hearted woman – The divorce

CHAPTER IV. Sympathy between father and daughter – Interest in public charities – A dreadful sight – A sick babe in the arms of a half-drunken woman – “Is there no law to meet such cases?” – -“The poor baby has no vote!” – Edith seeks for the grave of her child, but cannot find it – She questions her mother, who baffles her curiosity – Mrs. Bray’s visit – Interview between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Bray – “The baby isn’t living?” – “Yes; I saw it day before yesterday in the arms of a beggar-woman” – Edith’s suspicions aroused – Determined to discover the fate of her child – Visits the doctor – “Your baby is in heaven” – “Would to God it were so, for I saw a baby in hell not long ago!”

CHAPTER V. Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray – “The woman to whom you gave that baby was here yesterday” – The woman must be put out of the way – Exit Mrs. Dinneford, enter Pinky Swett – “You know your fate – New Orleans and the yellow fever” – “All I want of you is to keep track of the baby” – Division of the spoils – Lucky dreams – Consultation of the dream-book for lucky figures – Sam McFaddon and his backer, who “drives in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin” – The fate of a baby begged with – The baby must not die – The lottery-policies

CHAPTER VI. Rottenness at the heart of a great city – Pinky Swett’s attempted rescue of a child from cruel beating – The fight – Pinky’s arrest – Appearance of the “queen” – Pinky’s release at her command – The queen’s home – The screams of children being beaten – The rescue of “Flanagan’s Nell” – Death the great rescuer – “They don’t look after things in here as they do outside – Everybody’s got the screws on, and things must break sometimes, but it isn’t called murder – The coroner understands it all”

CHAPTER VII. Pinky Swett at the mercy of the crowd in the street – Taken to the nearest station-house – Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray again – Fresh alarms – “She’s got you in her power” – -“Money is of no account” – The knock at the door – Mrs. Dinneford in hiding – The visitor gone – Mrs. Bray reports the woman insatiable in her demands – Must have two hundred dollars by sundown – No way of escape except through police interference – “People who deal with the devil generally have the devil to pay” – Suspicion – A mistake – Sound of feet upon the stairs – Mrs. Dinneford again in hiding – Enter Pinky Swett – Pinky disposed of – Mrs. Dinneford again released – Mrs. Bray’s strategy – “Let us be friends still, Mrs. Bray” – Mrs. Dinneford’s deprecation and humiliation – Mrs. Bray’s triumph

CHAPTER VIII. Mrs. Bray receives a package containing two hundred dollars – “Poor baby! I must see better to its comfort” – Pinky meets a young girl from the country – The “Ladies’ Restaurant” – Fried oysters and sangaree – The “bindery” girl – “My head feels strangely” – Through the back alley – The ten-cent lodging house – Robbery – A second robbery – A veil drawn – A wild prolonged cry of a woman – The policeman listens only for a moment, and then passes on – Foul play – “In all our large cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the Comanches” – Who is responsible?

CHAPTER IX. Valuation of the spoils – The receiver – The “policy-shop” and its customers – A victim of the lottery mania

CHAPTER X. “Policy-drunkards” – A newly-appointed policeman’s blunder – The end of a “policy-drunkard” – Pinky and her friend in consultation over “a cast-off baby in Dirty alley” – “If you can’t get hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray” – The way to starve a baby – Pinky moves her quarters without the use of “a dozen furniture cars” – A baby’s home – The baby’s night nurse – The baby’s supper – The baby’s bed – How the baby’s money is spent – Where the baby’s nurse passes the night – The baby’s disappearance

CHAPTER XI. Reserve between mother and daughter – Mrs. Dinneford disapproves of Edith’s charitable visits – Mrs. Dinneford meets Freeling by appointment at a hotel – “There’s trouble brewing” – “A letter from George Granger” – Accused of conspiracy – Possibility of Granger’s pardon by the governor – An ugly business – In great peril – Freeling’s threats of exposure – A hint of an alternative

CHAPTER XII. Mr. Freeling fails to appear at his place of business – Examination of his bank accounts – It is discovered that he has borrowed largely of his friends – Mrs. Dinneford has supplied him $20,000 from her private purse – Mrs. Dinneford falls sick, and temporarily loses her reason – “I told you her name was Gray – Gray, not Bray” – Half disclosures – Recovery – Mother and daughter mutually suspicious – The visitor – Mrs. Dinneford equal to the emergency – Edith thrown off the track

CHAPTER XIII. Edith is satisfied that her babe is alive – She has a desire to teach the children of the poor – “My baby may become like one of these” – She hears of a baby which has been stolen – Resolves to go and see it, and to apply to Mr. Paulding of the Briar street mission for assistance in her attempt – Mr. Paulding persuades her that it is best not to see the child, and promises that he himself will look after it – Returns home – Her father remonstrates with her, finally promises to help her

CHAPTER XIV. Mr. Dinneford sets out for the mission-house – An incident on the way – Encounters Mr. Paulding – Mr. Paulding makes his report – “The vicious mark their offspring with unmistakable signs of moral depravity; this baby has signs of a better origin” – A profitable conversation – “I think you had better act promptly”

CHAPTER XV. Mr. Dinneford with a policeman goes in quest of the baby – The baby is gone – Inquiries – Mr. Dinneford resolves to persevere – Cause of the baby’s disappearance – Pinky Swett’s curiosity – Change of baby’s nurse – Baby’s improved condition – Baby’s first experience of motherly tenderness – Baby’s first smile – “Such beautiful eyes” – Pinky Swett visits the St. John mission-school – Edith is not there

CHAPTER XVI. Mr. Dinneford’s return, and Edith’s disappointment – “It is somebody’s baby, and it may be mine” – An unsuspected listener – Mrs. Dinneford acts promptly – Conference between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Hoyt, alias Bray – The child must be got out of the way – “If it will not starve, it must drown” – Mrs. Dinneford sees an acquaintance as she leaves Mrs. Hoyt’s, and endeavors to escape his observation – A new danger and disgrace awaiting her

CHAPTER XVII. Mental conditions of mother and daughter – Mr. Dinneford aroused to a sense of his moral responsibilities – The heathen in our midst – The united evil of policy-lotteries and whisky-shops – The education of the policy-shops

CHAPTER XVIII. News item: “A child drowned” – Another news item: Pinky Swett sentenced to prison for robbery – Baby’s improved condition – Mrs. Burke’s efforts to retain the baby after Pinky Swett’s imprisonment – Baby Andy’s rough life in the street – Mrs. Burke’s death – Cast upon the world – Andy’s adventures – He finds a home and a friend

CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Dinneford visits the mission-school – A comparison of the present with the past – The first mission-school – Reminiscences of the school in its early days – The zealous scholar – Good effects of the mission – “Get the burning brands apart, or interpose incombustible things between them” – An illustration – “Let in light, and the darkness flees”

CHAPTER XX. “The man awoke and felt the child against his bosom, soft and warm” – Led by a little child – “God being my helper, I will be a man again” – A new life – Meeting of an old friend – A friend in need – Food, clothes, work – A new home – God’s strength our only safety

CHAPTER XXI. Intimate relations of physical and moral purity – Blind Jake – The harvest of the thieves and beggars – Inconsiderate charity – Beggary a vice – “The deserving poor are never common beggars” – “To help the evil is to hurt the good” The malignant ulcer in the body politic of our city – The breeding-places of epidemics and malignant diseases – Little Italian street musicians – The existence of slavery in our midst – Facts in regard to it

CHAPTER XXII. Edith’s continued interest in the children of the poor – Christmas dinner at the mission-house – Edith perceives Andy, and feels a strange attraction toward him – Andy’s disappearance after dinner – Pinky Swett has been seen dragging him away – Lost sight of

CHAPTER XXIII. Christmas dinner at Mr. Dinneford’s – The dropped letter – It is missed – A scene of wild excitement – Mrs. Dinneford’s sudden death – Edith reads the letter – A revelation – “Innocent!” – Edith is called to her mother – “Dead, and better so!” – Granger’s innocence established – An agony of affection – No longer Granger’s wife

CHAPTER XXIV. Edith’s sickness – Meeting of Mrs. Bray and Pinky Swett – A trial of sharpness, in which neither gains the advantage – Mr. Dinneford receives a call from a lady – The lady, who is Mrs. Bray, offers information – Mr. Dinneford surprises her into admitting an important fact – Mrs. Bray offers to produce the child for a price – Mr. Dinneford consents to pay the price on certain stipulations – Mrs. Bray departs, promising to come again

CHAPTER XXV. Granger’s pardon procured – How he receives his pardon – Mrs. Bray tries to trace Pinky home – Loses sight of her in the street – Mrs. Bray interviews a shop-woman – Pinky’s destination – The child is gone

CHAPTER XXVI. Mrs. Bray does not call on Mr. Dinneford, as she promised – Peril to Andrew Hall through loss of the child – Help – Edith longs to see or write to Granger, but does not – Edith encounters Mrs. Bray in the street – “Where is my baby?” – Disappointment – How to identify the child if found

CHAPTER XXVII. No trace of Andy – Account of Andy’s abduction – Andy’s prison – An outlook from prison – A loose nail – The escape – The sprained ankle – The accident

CHAPTER XXVIII. Edith’s visit to the children’s hospital – “Oh, my baby! thank God! my baby!” – The identification

CHAPTER XXIX. Meeting of Mr. Dinneford and George Granger – “We want you to help us find your child” – “Edith’s heart is calling out for you” – The meeting – The marriage benediction