No, she isn't much to look at--just a plainish bit of clay, Of the sort of perished children that die 'round here every day; And how _she_ could break a heart up you'd be slow to understand, But she held _mine_, Mr. Preacher, in that little withered hand! There are lots of prettier children, with a face and form more fine-- Let their parents love and pet them--but _this_ little one was _mine_! There was no one else to cling to when we two were torn apart, And it's death--this amputation of the strong arms of the heart! I am just an ignorant man, sir, of the kind that digs and delves, But I've learned that human beings cannot stay in by themselves; They will reach out after something, be it good or be it bad, And my heart on hers had settled, and--the girl was all I had! [Illustration: "CHOKED AND STRANGLED BY THE FOUL BREATH OF THE CHIMNEYS OVER THERE."] Yes, it's solid, Mr. Preacher, every word that you have said-- God loves children while they're living, and adopts them when they're dead; But I cannot help contriving, do the very best I can, That it wasn't God's mercy took her, but the selfishness of man! Why, she lay here, faint and gasping, moaning for a bit of air, Choked and strangled by the foul breath of the chimneys over there; It climbed through every window, and crept under every door, And I tried to bar against it, and she only choked the more. [Illustration: "OH, THE AIR IS PURE AND WHOLESOME WHERE SOME BABIES COO AND REST, AND THEY TRIM THEM OUT WITH RIBBONS, AND THEY FEED THEM WITH THE BEST."] She would lie there, with the old look that poor children somehow get; She had learned to use her patience, and she did not cry or fret, But would lift her little face up, so piteous and so fair, And would whisper, "_I am dying for a little breath of air!_" If she'd gone off through the sunlight, 'twouldn't have seemed so hard to me, Or among the fresh cool breezes that come sweeping from the sea; But it's nothing less than murder when my darling's every breath Chokes and strangles with the poison from that chimney swamp of death! Oh, it's not enough those people own the very ground we tread, And the shelter that we crouch in, and the tools that earn our bread; They must place their blotted mortgage on the air and on the sky, And shut out our little heaven, till our children pine and die! Oh, the air is pure and wholesome where _some_ babies coo and rest, And they trim them out with ribbons, and they feed them with the best; But the love they bear is mockery to the gracious God on high, If to give those children luxuries some one else's child must die! Oh, we wear the cheapest clothing, and our meals are scant and brief, And perhaps those fellows fancy there's a cheaper grade of grief; But the people all around here, losing children, friends, and mates, Can inform them that _Affliction hasn't any under-rates_.