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Speaker 1: In the Workhouse Christmas Day by George R. Simms. It

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is Christmas Day in the workhouse, and the cold bare

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walls are bright with garlands of green and holly, and

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the place is a pleasant sight for with clean washed

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hands and faces. In a long and hungry line, the

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paupers sit at the tables, for this is the hour

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they dine. And the guardians and their ladies, although the

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wind is eased, have come in their furs and wrappers

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to watch their charges feast, to smile and be condescending,

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put pudding on pauper plates to be host at the

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workhouse banquet they've paid for with their rates. Oh, the

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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

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whence it comes but one of the old men and

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mutters and pushes his plate aside. Great God, he cries,

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but it chokes me, for this is the day she died.

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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?

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Then the ladies clutch their husbands, thinking the man would die,

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struck by a bolt or something by the outraged one

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on high. But the pauper sat for a moment, then

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

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to chatter and trembled in every limb. He looked at

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the guardians ladies, then eyeing their lords, he said, I

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eat not the food of villains whose hands are foul

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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

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he's mad and raves. Not drunk or mad, cried the pauper.

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But only a hunted beast, who torn by the hounds

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and mangled, declines the vulture's feast. Keep your hands off me,

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curse you, hear me right out to the end. You

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come here to see how paupers the season of Christmas spend.

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You come here to watch us feeding as they watch

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the captured beast. Hear why a penniless spauper spits on

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your paltry feast. Do you think I will take your

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bounty and let you smile and think you're doing a

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noble action with the perish's meat and drink. Where's my wife,

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you traitors? The poor old wife you slew yes by

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the God above us. My nance was killed by you.

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Last winter my wife lay dying, starved in a filthy den.

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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

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ruin came. I heul up my head as a trader,

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and I bore a spotless name. I came to the parish,

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craving break for a starving wife, bread for the woman

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who'd loved me through fifty years of life. And what

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do you think? They told me, mocking my awful grief,

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that the house was open to us, but they wouldn't

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give out relief. I slunk to the filthy alley. Twas

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a cold, raw Christmas Eve, and the baker's shops were open,

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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

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handed and mournfully told her why. Then I told her

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the house was open. She had heard of the ways

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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,

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we've never had one apart, I think I can bear

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the hunger, the other would break my heart. All through

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that eve I watched her holding her hand in mine,

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praying the Lord, and weeping till my lips where salt

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is brine. I asked her once if she hungered, And

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as she answered no, the moon shone in at the window,

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set in a wreath of snow. Then the room was

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

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

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And her lips were parched and parted, and her reason

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came and went. For she raved of our home in Devon,

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where our happiest years were spent, and the accents long

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forgotten came back to the tongue once more, for she

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talked like the country lassie I wooed by the Devon shore.

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Then she rose to her feet and trembled, and fell

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on the rags and moaned, And give me a crust.

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

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rushed from the room like a madman and flew to

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the workhouse gate, crying food for a dying woman. And

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the answer came too late. They drove me away with curses.

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Then I fought with a dog in the street, and

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tore from the mongol's clutches a crust he was trying

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to eat back through the filthy bye lanes, back through

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the trampled slush, up to the crazy garret, wrapped in

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an awful hush. My heart sank down at the threshold,

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and I paused with a sudden thrill, for there in

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

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to the black and ceiling, the sunken eyes were cast.

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I knew on those lips, all bloodless, my name had

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been the last she called for her absent husband. Oh God,

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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

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land of plenty lay a loving woman dead, cruelly starved

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and murdered for a loaf of the parish bread at

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yonder Gate last Christmas, I craved for a human life.

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

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Get ye gone to your dinners. Don't mind me in

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the least. Think of the happy paupers eating your Christmas feast,

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And when you recount their blessings in your smug, parochial

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way say what you did for me too, Only last

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Christmas Day. End of in the Workhouse Christmas Day by

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George R. Simms