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In the Workhouse Christmas Day by George
R. Simms. It is Christmas Day

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in the workhouse, and the cold
bare walls are bright with garlands of green

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and holly, and the place is
a pleasant sight for with clean washed hands

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and faces. In a long and
hungry line, the paupers sit at the

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tables, for this is the hour
they dine. And the guardians and their

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ladies, although the wind is eased, have come in their furs and wrappers

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to watch their charges feast, to
smile and be condescending, put pudding on

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pauper plates to be host at the
workhouse banquet they've paid for with their rates.

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Oh, the paupers are meek and
lowly with their thank ye kindly mums.

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So long as they fill their stomachs, what matter at whence it comes

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but one of the old men and
mutters and pushes his plate aside. Great

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God, he cries, but it
chokes me, for this is the day

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she died. The guardians gazed in
horror. The master's face went white.

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Did a pauper refuse the pudding?
Could their ears believe aright? Then the

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ladies clutch their husbands, thinking the
man would die, struck by a bolt

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or something by the outraged one on
high. But the pauper sat for a

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moment, then rose mid a silence, grim, for the others had ceased

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to chatter and trembled in every limb. He looked at the guardians ladies,

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then eyeing their lords, he said, I eat not the food of villains

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whose hands are foul and red,
whose victims cry for vengeance from their dank,

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unhallowed graves. He's drunk, said
the workhouse master. Or else he's

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mad and raves. Not drunk or
mad, cried the pauper. But only

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a hunted beast, who torn by
the hounds and mangled, declines the vulture's

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feast. Keep your hands off me, curse you, hear me right out

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to the end. You come here
to see how paupers the season of Christmas

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spend. You come here to watch
us feeding as they watch the captured beast.

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Hear why a penniless spauper spits on
your paltry feast. Do you think

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I will take your bounty and let
you smile and think you're doing a noble

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action with the perish's meat and drink. Where's my wife, you traitors?

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The poor old wife you slew yes
by the God above us. My nance

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was killed by you. Last winter
my wife lay dying, starved in a

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filthy den. I'd never been to
the parish. I came to the perish.

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Then I swallowed my pride in coming
for ere the ruin came. I

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heul up my head as a trader, and I bore a spotless name.

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I came to the parish, craving
break for a starving wife, bread for

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the woman who'd loved me through fifty
years of life. And what do you

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think? They told me, mocking
my awful grief, that the house was

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open to us, but they wouldn't
give out relief. I slunk to the

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filthy alley. Twas a cold,
raw Christmas Eve, and the baker's shops

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were open, tempting a man to
thieve. But I clenched my fists together,

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holding my head awry. So I
came to her empty handed and mournfully

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told her why. Then I told
her the house was open. She had

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heard of the ways of that,
for her bloodless cheeks went crimson and up

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in her rags. She sat crying
by the Christmas Here, John, we've

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never had one apart, I think
I can bear the hunger, the other

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would break my heart. All through
that eve I watched her holding her hand

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in mine, praying the Lord,
and weeping till my lips where salt is

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brine. I asked her once if
she hungered, And as she answered no,

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the moon shone in at the window, set in a wreath of snow.

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Then the room was bathed in glory, and I saw my darling's eyes

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the far away look of wonder that
comes when the spirit flies. And her

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lips were parched and parted, and
her reason came and went. For she

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raved of our home in Devon,
where our happiest years were spent, and

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the accents long forgotten came back to
the tongue once more, for she talked

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like the country lassie I wooed by
the Devon shore. Then she rose to

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her feet and trembled, and fell
on the rags and moaned, And give

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me a crust. I'm famished,
for the love of God, she groaned.

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I rushed from the room like a
madman and flew to the workhouse gate,

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crying food for a dying woman.
And the answer came too late.

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They drove me away with curses.
Then I fought with a dog in the

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street, and tore from the mongol's
clutches a crust he was trying to eat

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back through the filthy bye lanes,
back through the trampled slush, up to

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the crazy garret, wrapped in an
awful hush. My heart sank down at

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the threshold, and I paused with
a sudden thrill, for there in the

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silvery moonlight, my nance lay cold
and still. Up to the black and

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ceiling, the sunken eyes were cast. I knew on those lips, all

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bloodless, my name had been the
last she called for her absent husband.

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Oh God, had I but known, had called in vain and in anguish,

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had died in that den alone.
Yes, there, in a land

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of plenty lay a loving woman dead, cruelly starved and murdered for a loaf

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of the parish bread at yonder Gate
last Christmas, I craved for a human

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life. You who had feast us
paupers, what of my murdered wife?

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There? Get ye gone to your
dinners. Don't mind me in the least.

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Think of the happy paupers eating your
Christmas feast, And when you recount

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their blessings in your smug, parochial
way say what you did for me too,

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Only last Christmas Day. End of
in the Workhouse Christmas Day by George

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R. Simms