Cast Adrift

DETAILED CONTENTS.

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