Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1883 — Page 6

THE CONVICT TO HIS HOTHKB. Wtthix the prison walls, mother, Skat in a convict’s oeO, iHßtn thinking now of yon. My thoughts no tongue can telL I'm safe 'twill break your heart, mother. And end yogs days in woe. When yon Mar Mutt 1 have fallen— God only knows bow low. < I know yon gave me good advioe. Ton taught me what was right. Bat I slighted all yonr counsels. So I am here to-night. 1 Ml into bad company. And soon began to drink. To lie and swear and steal, mother— In rin 1 fast did sink. I didn't seem to realize That from the flowing bowl A bitter, bitter curse would come To blight my inmost soul. I followed in the path of crime, Without e'en a thought Whether the.thtngs then enjoyed v To me were dearly bought. Until the hand of outraged law Brought me before the Judge, To answer the charge made Against me—not for grudge. I felt my degradation then; It piesoed me tbrpugh and Mr ough. And oh, I prayed within my heart It might oe kept from youl The Judge was a kind-hearted man, He looked me in the face, And said, “Young man, I much regret To see you in this place. There ts uo crime stamped on your brow— I think you're led astray Guilty or not," said he, “are you? Tell me the truth, I pray." “Guilty, your Honor,” I replied, “Show mercy, if you can— My sin has been my punishment. I'm now a fallen man." Yes, I have fallen, mother; dear, God only knows how low; I’ve sent a dagger to yonr heart— A cruel, fatal blow/’ There's another one, dear mother, • That’s ever in my mind: I left her in a foreign land, And was to her unkind. I treated her most shamefully. And still she used me well— Soma never; value heaven aright Until they pass through hell. Send a message to her, mother— Say that you’ve heard from me— That by bad associations I lost my liberty. Urge her to forgive me. mother— It will console my mind When I know that I’m forgiven For treating her unkind. Within the prison walls, mother, I am confined for Mfe— How dark the fntnro looks to me, It is with sorrow rife; Bnt 111 strive to do my dnty Until the final day, Bo when the toils of life arc o’er I’ll meet you o’er the wav.

THE THREE GOOD GIFTS.

“Lill, Lill! run to the door—quick! There’s some one coming down the road.” Lill Penfield started to her feet with alacrity, thus ruthlessly destroying all the bright visions which had built themselves up around the glowing logs in the deep chimney. “How much is it for a foot passenger ?” said she, calling up the narrow, wooden stairway. “But it isn’t a foot passenger,” irritably retorted Delia, with her mouth full of hairpins. “It’s old Miss Merrydeer, with her donkey cart. Ten cents.” It wafc a stormy March sunset, red and threatening along the west, with a frozen breath of icicles in the air, and black masses of cloud piled overhead, through which old Miss Merrydeer’s cart seemed to advance. Lill Penfield stood on the toll-house porch, looking with surprised eyes at the gaunt, old woman, who sat on a heap of cut branches and whipped up a phlegmatic donkey in front of her. “Oh, you’re always ready enough to stop,’’-sarcastically remarked old Miss Merrydeer, as the donkey came to a dead halt in front of the toll-bar. “Now, then, young woman” (to Lill), “why ain’t I to be allowed to go on ?" “Ten cents, please,” said Lill, timidly holding out her hand, with all that she had ever read, dreamed or heard about witches coming back into her mind at the sight of the yellow, old face, with its fringe of white elf-locks, the red cloak and the nose that was hooked like a bird of prey. “Ten cents 1” shrilly shrieked old Miss Merrydeer. “And for what, I should like to know?” “It’s the toll-gatq, please,” explained Lill, wishing more than ever that her cousin would come down stairs. “I don’t know anything about tollgates,” said Miss Merrydeer. “Stand aside and let me go through. The road was here long afore they built the toll-gate. It’s swindling—that’s what it is. Get up, Neddy!” She settled herself back among the /green spruce boughs and protruding roots with an air of determination, and .chirruped to her drowsy steed as if she meant to ride rough-shod over all opposition ; but just here Della Penfield ■came running down stairs and swung the bar back to it’s place. “Ten cents, Miss Merrydeer,” said she, “or you can’t pass. That’s the law.”

Miss Merrydeer uttered a curious grant of dissatisfaction. “If it’s law, it ain’t justmq,” said she, fumbling iu the pocket of her tattered w old coat—a garment which had evidently been cut down from a man’s ulster. “There, as true as you live, that there dime has fell out and got lost in the woods!” “That% nonsense,” said Delia, tartly. “Ten cents—and do hurry. I can’t stand here in this wind all night.” “But I hain’t got it,” bluntly spoke <rat the old crone. “Lemme pass!” “Not without the 10 cents,” said Delia, resolutely. “I’ve pa’s orders, and I must stick to ’em. If you haven’t got tbe.nptoney you must go around by "HTVnml • “But four miles further,” said old woman, despairingly. “And 'WtfflmW *' ro d> ftQ d so am I. And •it’s growin' colder every minute, and flfftreh winds is hard on my rheu«You should have thought ojf that be“ore,” said Del>e, indifferently.

“Delia, why don't yon let her page V whispered Ml. “She’s so old and—” “01d? a pettishly repeated Delia. “Why, she’s the worst old harpy in the country. We always have just this wrangle every time she goes through the gate.” And she bolted the gate with ostentations noise. Old Miss Merrydeer was slowly and reluctantly turning the donkey’s drooping head around, when Lill herself came to the rescue. “Stop a minute, Miss Merrydeer,” said she. “Here is a 10-cent piece. It seems such a pity for you and the poor old donkey to go so far around this bitter cold night. And—and you can pay me the next time you come this “Eh?” said Miss Merrydeer, shrilly. “Who are you?” “I’m Lill,” said the girl. “Mr. Penfield’s niece, from Omaha.” “Ah!” said the old woman. “Well, whoever you be, you've done a, kind and merciful deed this night. And you’ll get your reward for it too. Shall I tell your fortune?” once more stopping the donkey as he was half-way through the toll-gate to Delia Penfield’s infinite .disgust. “Oh, yes, I’ve a charm. We that live in the woods find ont many a spell that other folks know nothing of. Well, here it is. Three good gifts for you. There’s a lover coming-; there’s a gift of money coming, and there’s a clear conscience to go to bed upon this night. Good-by—good by.” And the donkey trotted awav over the frozen roads, Mb hoofs ringing like muffled bells, while Dell adjusted the bars with a laugh, and both girls ran hurriedly back to the glow and shelter of the fireplace. “Is she crazy ?” said Lill, earnestly. “Not half so cragy as you were to listen to her,” said Delia. “It’s old Miss Merrydeer. Every one knows her. She gets roots and herbß from the woods and boils them into drinks. There are families aronnd here that would rather have Miss Merrydeer in sickness than any other doctor in town. And she’s a nuxpe, too; and some thinks she sees ana hears more than other people. ” “How old is she?” / “A hundred at least,” said Delia. “Now, let ns make haste and get the tea ready, for pa will be half frozen when he comes.” “I wonder if my three good gifts will come true ?“ said Lill laughing. “Oh, undoubtedly!” Delia answered, wi*h the most marked satire. But Delia Penfield herself was surprised, about a week subsequently, when a letter arrived for Lill from “the lad she left behind her.”

“What do you think, Lill?” he wrote, “I am coming East. I am coming to the very same part of the country where you are. Do you know the old red mill ? Well, Oriel Hall has bought it and we are to run it in partnership. And when we have saved a little money, Oriel is coming back West for the girl he is engaged to, and I—well, Lill, you know the rest. It may be several years first, but we must be patient ! For the present, dear, it will be enough for me to be near you.” “There’s the lover!” cried Delia, as Lill sat radiantly dreaming over the letter. “And the clear conscience wqll take for granted. Now, if only old witch Merrydeer would, supply the money, I should really believe in her.” “I guess,” said Jeboram Hawley, the hired man, who had come in at this moment with a pot of glue to warm over the kitchen stove, “that old Miss Merrydeer won’t supply many more things in this world. She’s at death’s door with pneumony. That’s what I’ve heard.” “Is she, poor old thing?” said Delia, carelessly. “Take care Jeboratn, don’t spill that glue!” . “SMb’s got a lawyer’s clerk there a making of her will!” chuckled Jeboram. “He’s to take out his pay in four bottles of Ague Spruce Cure and a gallon of root beer. But law! there ain’t ho use —shell never die! Shell fly up on a broomstick some day, or disappear in a flash of lightning.” * The next day, however, came a tattered little messenger to the toll-house —a bright-eyed colored lad. “Old Miss Merrydeer wants to see the young woman as she give the three good gifts to,” said he, rolling ( his cof-fee-colored eyeballs around. “Pm to show her de way. Bight off, please.” Lill looked at Delia in amazement. “Shall I go?” said she. “Oh, surely I ought.” “It’s a lonely spot,” Delia—“up in the woods without a neighbor’s house in sight. Jeboran had better follow you at a little distance. Old witoh Merrydeer may turn you into a white dove or a red fawn, for all that I know.”

She laughed, but there was a certain vein of seriousness that underlay all her mirth; so Lill started out in the gray March afternoon, with flurries of snow pricking her cheek like frozen needles ever and anon, and the rilnpy frost crackling under her feet, while, some few paces behind, trudged Jeboram, charged to look as little as possible like an escort. “For nobody knows,” said Delia, “what the old witch may take offense at.” But, to confess the trnth, Lill was frightened when she entered the little one-storied oabiu, one side of which was all awry with the force of many a winter’s tempest, in whose low-ceiled apartment old Miss Merrydeer lay dying. “Is it my bonny girl?” she said, lifting her glance to the new comer’s faoe. “Yes, it’s she as gave me the dime. Out of her own pocket she gave it to me. Everyone rise turned their backs upon me and laughed to see the old witch go by! No one ever gave me anything before but sneers and curses. For what

good to anybody was old witch Merrydeer? But she took pity on her, Lord love her! And I promised her three good gifts. I’ve made her my heir ess, that’s what I’ve done. Come here, pretty one, and put your hand in mine. ” Bnt even as Lill touched her warm palm to the old crone’s fast-purpling hand, she gave a quick gasp, turned 1 over, apd died. LUI closed her eyes, tied up the poor old toothless jaws with her scented pocket handkercMef, crossed the hands on the pulseless breast, and went home again, learving Jeboram to do what he could for the watchers and attendants. And, as she walked, she carried the strange, aromatic odors of pine and birch, and dried penny-royal bunches in her dress, curions remembrances of old Miss Merrydeer. They buried her on the mountain side in a quaint little graveyard, where the oows grazed at will, picking their way among* the moss-grown tombstones, and where the fence had long ago fallen to ruins; and people laughed at the idea of Lill Pennfield being constituted heiress of the dead woman’s estate. “Oh, yes; the will is all right and tight enough," said Uncle pennfield. “But, after all, what does it amount to ? An old hovel crammed chuck full of yarbe and roots, twenty gallons o’ root beer, four dozen bottles of ague cure that never yet cured anybody, and four acres of land with the stones so clese together on’t that even the sheep can’t get their noses down to browse. ’Taint much of a fortin’, according to mv way o’ thinking!” “But she meant kindly toward me, poor thing!” said Lill, softly; “and all because I gave her a—dime!” The next afternoon, however, Uncle Pennfield came back from town with a beaming face. “Look here, Lill,” said he. “You’ve got the fortin’ after all. What d’ye think ? Old Witch Merrydeer had SBOO in the savings bank, and it’s yours. I declare I never would have believed there was that much money to be made out of roots and yarbs!" “Eight hundred dollars!” cried Delia, springing to her feet. “Then Lill can marry Tom Catesby after all, when he comes East.” For to these simple people SBOO signified a fortune. So this gentle-natured heroine inherited the good gifts after all. Tom Catesby came East and set np in life as a miller, with Lill at the household helm. And of course they lived happily ever after. Who ever heard of a pair of true lovers that did otherwise ? While the neighbors' all marveled exceedingly and remarked, with various nasal inflections and wagging of the head, that it was “most extraordinary, but old Miss Merrydeer always was queer!”

The Ethics of Enjoyment.

The gift es enjoying life should be ranked among the most desirable of talents. When our forefather solemnly incorporated into their Declaration of Independence the assertion that men were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of. happiness, they gave official recognition and emphasis to the importance of happiness as an element es national life. As a rule we ignore it individually. We are apt to consider happiness from the Carlylean standpoint as something that “man can do without.” We are apt to have an undefined feeling that we are not doing our whole duty if we are happy; that it is a species of dilettantism or idle and childish self-indulgence. This is our Puritan inheritance, and one that still lingers perceptibly with us. Diderot, in his “Paradoxe sur le Comedien,”says: “But look around you, and you will see that people of never-failing gayety have neither great faults nor merits; that as a < rule people who lay themselves out to be agreeable are frivolous people, without any sound principle, and that those who, like certain persons who mix in our society, have no character, excel in playing all.” In this the French critic expresses a very universal sentiment and one that is apt to be accepted sans analysis. • But it is not true that happiness is really our nomal condition, and that any failure to realize it should suggest to us a violation of laws and warp us to seek the remedy and restoration ? Of course, if happiness is adjudged to be entirely dependant on things, and to require at least SIO,OOO a year for its support, it is a practically unattainable to most of us. But if we relegate it to its true place as a spiritual condition, we hold the keys that unlock for us the gates of destiny. Happiness is moral and intellectual sanity, as health is physical “the pursuit of happiness,” which is scoured to us as a constitutional right, is a very laudable and feasible occupation. Nine-tenths of our anxiety, our worry, our fancied trials, is wholly useless. Not that it is entirely without basis but its realities consist of conditions that can be dissipated, and even ignored. Life is too short to waste on idle or unavailing regret. It is wiser .to look up than down; to look forward rather than backward, —and the life that holds itself in true polarity to hope, and oheerfulness, and sunshine, is in itself the life of permanent and blessed suooess. “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”— Boston Traveller.

Am Alabama girl, 3 years old, on going to the window early one foggy morning, cried out: “On, come here and look, mamma. The sky is all orammed down to the ground 1” The remains of George Whitefield, the eminent divine, lie buried beneath the pulpit of the' old Presbyterian .Church at Newburyport, Mass.

Whore Bears Were Thick.

Said Major Jim: “B’an will leave when yon make it too hot for ’em, sir. When I waa doin business for old Jedge Smides, down in Madison Parish — plantation lay right on the river—Mississippi river, yon know—one night I was eittin’ on my gallery smokin’, sir —everything jest as still as er dead mule, sir. Well, first' thing I knowed I heerd a kinder noise way up ’cross the' river, and it sounded sorter low like at first, and then it kept gettin’loader and louder, twell I couldent stand it no longer, sir. I jest jumps upon my feet and says: ’Old ooman, old ooman, a hurricane’s cornin’ sure as you’re horn.’ Says she: ‘Major O.’—she always calls me Major O. when she wan’t’in a hurry —‘how in the name o’ sense can a hurricane be a cornin’ when there ain’t a cloud in the sky?’ ‘Well,’ says I, there’s the deuce to pay somewhere.’ So I picks np my doublebarrel and I breaks ont for the levee, and when I gits there.l lissen, and T hears that roarin’ ‘cross the river gittin’ louder and louder, jest like a nigger funeral, when they begin to blow the mud ont their bilers, sir. And I looked where the moon was shinin’, and I seen that whole river turnin’ black, sir, and cornin’ closer and closer up to where I was standin’. Skeared! I reckon I was skeared. Why, sir, my hair would a lifted a cotton bale. I would a put np and dusted, and I did kinder inch back er little, but I dazzen run, sir, with Susan Ann a standin’ there on that gallery. There she stood, sir, and first she’d sing ‘Old Hundred,’ and then she’d git down on her marrow bones and moan out her little prayer, and the every once in a while she’d holler out, *Jim, what is the matter?’ as if I would’nt a given six quarts of Dexter’s best jest to a half knowed what was the matter. If you’d a seed me, sir, a standin’ there havin’ one agur on top of another faster’n you could count ’em, and the cold sweat runnin’ out the holes in my boots, you’d a knowed, sir, how happy I was, sir, when I seed somethin’ black riz up out that liver and ’shuck Msself. I jest up and hollered to Susan Ann not to be carryin’ on like a moon jack and makin’ a darned fool of herself; but I had jest as well hollered at a loggerhead turkle, for Susan Ann and every nigger on that Mil had lit ont 'for the oanebreak, sir. So I jest stood there lonesome by myself, and I jest poured it into them b’ars right and left when they topped that levee and shuck themselves, twell broad daylight, sir. It looked like the whole world was full of b’ars, sir. I jest stood in my tracks and I killed thirty-eight of ’em, sir—the biggest in the drove, and when I stopped shootin’ there wasn’t a livin’ soul on that plantation ’cept me and them dead b’ars. Every nigger, sir, little and big, and Susan Ann to boot, was clean gone, sir. I got some nigger dcfgs and I ket<?hed the old ooman down on Joe’s Bayou the next day, but some of them niggers never did git baok, sir, never did. Yes, yes, b’ars will travel when you make it hot for ’em.” —Forest and Stream.

How the Farm Help Were Tired Out.

“The help we get nowadays don’t amount to shucks. Time was when the help you hired in haying time could do a decent day’s work, but this year they’re wurs’n ever.” . Old Farmer Smith was getting in hay at his farm in a suburban town, and had two or three men at work with him. The old man continued: “Tell you what it is: old as lam I can pack more hay on a wagin than any two men of the present day can fork up. ” “Suppose you try it, old man,” suggested one of the men, at the same time tipping the wink to his mate on the opposite side to “sock it” to the old man, The old fellow needed no second invitation. With a bound he mounted the cart, and was stowing away hay at, a tremendous rate. Up came forkful after forkful, first on one side and then upon the other. The “help” was putting in its best licks and the old man was kept squirming around in lively style, much to the amusement of all hands. The “help” was rapidly getting tired; it would never do to give up and allow the old man to come off victorious. Something must be done at once. “When I put up a heavy forkful on this side, give him all you cafi lift from the other end, and Knock him out,” said one of the men to the other in an undertone.

The plan worked well. One of the men lifted an extraordinary big forkful, just putting it upon the edge of the load, and, while tfie old man was leaning over endeavoring io get it in place, the fellow on the other side threw all he could lift upon the back of the old fellow,, which, of course, upset him and sent him sprawling to the ground. “Hello! what are you down here for ?” asked help No. 1, endeavoring as well as be could to conceal his merriment. Quick as a flash from the old man came the answer: “After more hay?” This answer tired the help completely. —Bos ton Globe.

Trees in Ireland.

In view of a proposal to extend the planting of trees in Ireland as a means of improving the condition of that country, a Parliamentary return moved for by Mr. Morum of the number of timber trees registered in the sister isle has been issued. It is furnished by the Clerk of of the several counties, and it shows the total number of trees registered to be 5,958,973. The best wooden count y would appear to be Oork, with 1,250,963, and the most sparsely-timbered country proper, and distinguished from cities in Louth, with T,738 registered trees. —London Meld.

PITH AND POINT.

[Morrison Herald.] They have discovered a greater curiosity than the sea serpent at Newp-r-. It is “the married man who pays atte > tion to his own wife!” It is very stsange. Bat perhaps he has to. Ah Altoona man claims to bare sre’i a veritable hoop snake near that plac It is strongly suspected that *lbe devoted considerable time to mspecting the contents of the barrel before h_> saw the “hoop.” A Western paper says: “Sam Weldon was shot last night in the rotunda by Henry Parsons.” About the worst place a man can be shot, next to the heart, is in the rotunda. It invariable proves fatal. Ah exchange speaks of a Sheriff “holding an elephant for debt.” He must be a very strong Sheriff—and a brave one, too. It is not' easy to hold an elephant—if the animal takes a notion to move on. But if the beast has contracted a debt, it should be held until it discharges the obligation. A news item says that the brain of a circus employe, found dying near Middletown, “weighed fifty-six ounces, the same size as that of the first Napoleon and of Daniel Webster.” Of course he was the man who wrote the circus advertisements. It requires a genius with a Webesterian brain to perform finch a task. The King of Italy says if he wasn’t a King he would be a newspaper reporter. Kings, after all, are only human, like the rest of us. They are , ambitious, and want to get into this most exalted and honorable positions in the world—albeit the salary of a King, we’ve been told, is a few hundred dollars more than thpt of a newspaper reporter. fCarl Pretzel’s Weekly.] The weathercock is a vane thing. A waiteb resembles a race-horse when he runs for steaks. The only poverty that is observable about the - great pleasure resorts is a poverty of brains. When a young man gets his mustache to do just as he Wants it, it may be termed broke-down. Blessed are the dining-room girls, according ■to the Bible, for verily they are the piece-makers. Full many an hour of sad reflection is spent in regretting the number of schooners that have gone down amid the storms that sweep across the bar. “Two prints with bnt a single thought, two tramps that beat as one,” said a compositor, as he and his partner marched valiantly up to the bar. Woman never had her rights. When a woman stands in front of a mirror for ten minutes she is called vain, but a man can stand there tjalf a day when shaving himself, and the rest of the family imagines that he is telling the truth when he is cussing at the razor. “A feA t moments sometimes make a man change,” yells the Boston Post. “A man with blue eyes was seen going into a beer saloon yesterday, and when he came out he had black eyes." We have often heard of a man having black and blue at the same time. [Chicago Cheek.] A depressing feature—a broken nose. Whisky has a “rising tendency* when a man drinks too much. Under the title of “Thoughts on the Sea,” a poet has unburdened himself. One’s thoughts on the sea are often of a very retched characier. “A person loses one pound during a night’s sleep,” says an exchange. This must be applicable to Americans. The English papers chronicle accounts of persons losing hundreds of pouifds during a night’s sleep. Tickle away, you fly; pestiferous carnivorous, you tantalizing fly. The frost and the winter’s coining and yon’ll soon lie down and die. Jump in the glucose, drink the milk, contaminate the tea. Yoa«ll soon leave tMs festive earth, a fly angel to be. King Omom, once husband of 706 African damsels, is dead. If tbe grief of each widow equaled the display mpde by American women at the funerals of their husbands, the mourners must have followed the king to his last restplace in boats.

American Handwriting.

Statistics are needed of the American handwriting before any generalization is attempted about it. Thqse who are in the way of seeing specimens of it from all parts of the ' country, from clergymen, clerks, farmers, lawyers, doctors, agents, merchants, etc.—always excepting the people who write like the writing-master—declare that they have no general characteristic, except that the handwriting is sprawling, flourishy, unformed, that it lacks neatness, compactness, solidify. Is this only a fancy, or is the writing’ a sign of superficiality and carelessness and exaggeration ? There is variety enough. We certainly have not the uniformity that in German or Frenoh writing enables us to tell, its nationality at a glace. we mistaken in saying that the English hand, generally speaking, is a hand of more culture, finish, neatness? We signed the Declaration very well on the whole, bat we have hardly as a people lived up to it .—Chflrlet Dudley Warner, in Harper’s Magazine.

Choose always the wary that seems the • best, however rough it may be. Custom will render it easy and agreeable,— Pythagoras.