by Rachel Stockton

Created on: August 29, 2011   Last Updated: August 30, 2011

American author Ambrose Bierce was inarguably one of the most prolific and influential authors of the Victorian era.  His works crossed several  genres, but he was perhaps best known for his realistic short stories that depicted his experiences as a First Lt. under William Babcock Hazen, a commander of the Union Army's 9th Indiana Regiment during the

American Civil War.

As equally popular as his historic short stories were his works of grotesquerie, a genre that was at once fantastic and ghoulish and which became popular at the beginning of the 20th century.  One of his best known short stories falling into this latter category of fiction was A Baby Tramp, a disturbing if not downright macabre story of the fate of a small child tragically orphaned at the age of one year.

The back story of the piece  hailed the prominence and wealth of the most popular fictional family in Blackburg, MA - the Brownons.  According to the story's narrator, the family were all models of good citizenry and decorum; the males held public offices while the females kept busy raising their families and performing charitable works throughout the town's environs.

One of the most favored women among the affluent clan was Hetty Brownon, who was not only kind, but was of virtuous character.  However, Hetty's one flaw may that she married a "scapegrace," a term used to describe one who is irresponsible; a ne'er do well who is generally up to no good.  While it seems that Hetty's new husband, a man by the name of Parlow, was successfully reformed through Hetty's influence, the writer subtly implies that all was not as it appeared with the young man.

Trouble Looms Ahead

Here is where the tale becomes fantastical:  the chronicler of the following ghastly events claims that Blacksburg suffered from visitations of horrific circumstance that were reminiscent of the biblical Ten Plagues.  Firstly, frogs came down from the heavens as abundantly as rain from a storm cloud; apparently, the consequences of this troublesome event were not life threatening, but merely annoying.

Not so when it comes to the second affliction.  One winter, there was an abundance of snow, an event not unusual in Massachusetts.  However, the snow was crimson - frozen blood covered the town proper, astonishing the citizenry.  The sages among Blackburg residents asserted that the bizarre predicament was a sign of bad things to come, a prediction that came to full fruition

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