Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1873 — A NARROW ESCAPE [ARTICLE]

A NARROW ESCAPE

“There !” said Mr.. Porter, as he wrote the last line with a flourish, and rosSfrom the table hurriedly, “don’t let me forget this letter. It contains about sixteen addresses that I can’t get along without. I copied them all on one side to save bother. Alice, you help me remember it. I’ll put it up here, on the end of tTfo man-tel-piece.” “Why don’t you put it in your pocket, papa, and 5 then you will be sure to have it ?” Thus spoke the -watching Elsie. “Because the pockets that I have about me now will be hanging in the clothespress when lam in the city. I declare, I haven’t much time to lose;” and Mr. Porter bustled away to dress. Mrs. Porter immediately emerged from his dressing-room. “Elsie, run quick arid ask Mr. Wheeler if he wants papa to carry thatpackage ; and if he does, tell him to have it at the cars in ten minutes, or it will be too late. Be spry now.” And Elsie put Baby Nell in Dick’s lap and ran. .1 ust a minute more and’Mrs. Porter came agnin. “Where’s Fred ?” she said, quickly. “Dick, do you know what has become of him ?” 'I saw him go dofii the hill witlT arlie Wheeler just a minute ago, ma’am.” "Dear me ! what a nuisance! I wish he was ever here when he was wanted. You’ll havd to go, Dick. Get your hat as quick as you can, and run to the store and tell Stephen that Mr. Porter wants that bundle that is in the right hand corner of the drawer. Now be just as quick as possible. There is always a dozen things left till the last minute; to hinder people.” “ Where shall I leave Baby Nell, ma’am ?” “Set her on the carpet, and give her something to play with. I’ll keep watch oflier." Then they went their different ways, and Baby had the room to herself. She looked around her with great solemn eyes. She had Elsie’s slipper and a red ball to play with; but she had played with them a score of times, until they had rpiite worn her imagination out. It stood to reason that she ought to be able to find something of more importance in that great room to take up her attention. So she threw the ball under the sofa, and tucked the slipper in her cradle and covered it up; then she started on her travel. There were a good many things that one would suppose would have taken up her attention, and it docs seem strange that she should’have made straight for tire' mantel-piece; yet that was precisely what she did. She climbed up on her stool, and from that to the great easy chair, and by standing on the arm of it, her curly head just reached the mantle. She gave a little squeal of delight, and, seizing upon the important letter; plumped herself in the easy chair to read it People read letters; she had seen .; them often; why shouldn’t she? The envelop was not sealed, and her small fingers easily jerked out the sheet. Then you -would have been edified, if you could have seen and heard her. Such a curious jargon as she rattled off, stopping, now r and then, to tlirow back her head and laugh; as if the contents of .the letter were very funny, indeed. As she turned the leaf the stiff paper tore a little; it made a curious noise. Baby Nell was very fond of noise; quite a scholar, indeed, in the art of studying out new. ones. She paused in her reading, and gave the paper quick, little jerks. “Cris, cris,” it went; a most delightful, crispy sound. Baby Nell giggled triumphantly; so much more improving this was than reading. She was studying the science of acoustics. Swe was a very industrious little body; and it took but a short time for her deft little fingers to tear all Papa Porter’s important addresses into such narrow, ribbons that it would, have been very hard, indeed, to have made them out. There they were, in a nice little heap in her lap; She gave a sigh of satisfaction, and wondered what to do next. She decided- to go back to the mantel, and, seizing the envelop that she had not chosen to tear, she climbed up again. There was a glass of water on the mantel, ?nld she chose to consider herself thirsty. She promptly dropped the envelop, in almost the same position that she had found it, and seizing the tumbler, clambered down, without spilling more than half the contents. Arrived-on.the floor., she forgot‘her thirst and began eagprly to gather up the whole army of strips mar them .into smaller bits, find send tnem in swimming. At this point, Mr. Porter -rushed out, seized upon Baby NeU, kissed- her hurriedly, sat her down again, snatched the empty envelop from the mantel, and flew out of the house, meeting both his messengers in the yard, and receiving iuormation and bundle. • “Do you kowii where to Arid Mr.Adams, when you get there?" Mr. Wheeler asked, as the two gentlemen

stood saying a few last words, as the train puffed and snorted, and took in fresh breath. “ Yes, I have his address on my paper. Just give me Charlie Wilson’s number again, and I’ll put it on the same list,” and Mr. Porter fumbled in his pocket for the envelop. “What under the sun, moon and stars is to pay now,” he muttered, as, to his utter amazement, he found it empty. “Here, I’ve brought the wrong envelop ! I can’t go without those addresses. My memoranda is on the same list.” Then wasn’t there a time I Didn’t Mr. Porter tear up the street like a mad-man, and dash into the house, look on the mantle-piece, and hunt in his pockets, and scold Dick and Fred and Elsie, and rave around generally, in the midst of which there came a distinct and emphatic voice from the depot. “Wh-o 00-o 00-o!” said the departing train. - , ; 1 ■ “There, now,”saidMr. Porter,stopping his search and folding his arms in a sort of comical despair. “Now you see what you'have done! There goes that train, and I wouldn’t have missed it for fifty dollars, snd all the result of carelessness.” Fred ventured to make a remark. “AVho has done it father?” “That’s just what I should like to know, and it’s what I mean to find out. Now which of you children meddled with that envelop ?” “ I wasn’t here," said each of the three children in a breath. “O no, you were none of you here, of course; you never are, when mischief is done. No doubt the letter jumped out of the envelop and walked off of itself. Fred, -where were you sir ?” “I was down at tlie footof the hill with Charlie Wheeler; looking at his new kite. I just this minute got in.” “And, papa,” said Elsie, “I went to Mr. Wheeler’s to see about that package, you know. Don’t you know, you met me at the gate and told me good-bye~ Just then a dismayed exclamation from Mrs. Porter arrested attention. In her haste to get damp clothes off from Baby Nell, she had set the tumbler back on the mantel, and now, as she .stood mechanically fishing after the floating paper, her eye caught one word, and the truth flashed upon her. The culprit stood revealed. It was rifther a damper on Mr. Porter’s enthusiasm; he couldn’t scold Baby Nell, for she would have laughed and crowed-, and thought herself having a grand frolic. He couldn’t shut her up in her room, and tell her to stay there all the forenoon, for he well knew she could do more mischief shut up in a room for five minutes than he could undo in as many hours; so he turned his anger toward Dick: “ What were you about-, I’d like to know-, that you let the baby do anything she chooses? What are you hired for, pray? If you are worth no more than that, you’d better go home.” “If you please,.sir,’’Dickbegan, “Mrs. Porter sent me to tie store to bring that bundle from the drawer, and I hurried every step of the way, and just got back in time.”

“Then there was n<? one to look after the baby.” said Mr. Porter, turning _gsL "proachfully to his wife. “Fred wasn’t here,” she answered, “and there was nothing else to do." “No, of course he wasn’t here. He never is where he ought to be. You sec what comes of your heedlessness, young man. You can go to your room, and stay there till dinner-time;” and then without so much as a glance at Baby Nell, who serenely sucked the toe of her slipper, and was tlie only happy one of the party, Mr: Porter took his hat and banged himself out. Dinner was rather a solemn meal with Mr. Porter’s family that day. The head of the house had not recovered his good humor. It was a sore disappointment, and an inconvenience to him not to be in Master Fred, cdnmderitig himself unjustly treated, ate his potato in solemn, not to say sullen, silence. By the time they camo to the rice pudding, with raisins in it, Mr. Wheeler burst in unannounced. He looked very pale, and a good deal excited. “Well, sir,” he said, “you have reason tb give tl|at baby of yours a good many extra kisses to-day. You haven’t heard the news, I suppose?” . “Haven’t heard anything,” said Mr. Porter, shortly. “All I know is, I ought to be in the city now, and am here.” “For which, I tell you, yon have cause to be more grateful than ever you were in your life. There has been an awful accident: the down train collided with the -eleven o’clock express, -and there has been terrible slaughter. I don’t know how many killed—some say hundreds. They have telegraphed up here for surgeons and nurses, arid the doctors are all going down now, on the one o’clock.” Tlien there were exclamations of consternation and tensOT, and thankfulness, all mingled together. When Mr. Wheeler hurriqd away, he. left paler faces around the Porter table, and just as solemn ones, but faces Wonderfully subdued. “What a singular escape!” Mrs. Porter murmured ; and as Baby Nell gave one of her sudden springs forward, and signified her desire to climb out of her chair to her father's shoulder, he took her in his arms, and laid his hand on her curly head, with a tender, moved look in his eyes. “She little knows what she has done to-day,” he said, softly. Then suddenly looking toward Fred, he said, in a voice that was a little husky, “Fred, my bby, pass your plate, and let father give you some more pudding.” But Fred’s appetite wasgone, and there was a great tear rolling down one fat cheek.— Interior.

■ —A curious copper coin was recently unearthed near Manchester, N. 11. On one side appears the date, 599, in Arabic numerals, and a small crown; upon the other is the number six in Roman numerals, and four, small parSllel pillars. The coin is much corroded and worn, and no one is able to decide what government issued it. , —One of our citizens went to the cars this morning to see his wife oS, and having two or three minutes before starting ; time, “stepped round the corner an inI stant." He returned just in time to see the train moving off, and, slapping his leg emphatically, he regretfully enunciated, “I oughtn't to have taken sugar.”—Danbury A etc.’; —Courting the.daughters of publicans "is risky in North Wales. A young man tried it lately, and though the young lady and her father were both willing, the law indicted a tine of five shillings because he was in a public house bejoifd the hour for closing. • " ~~ vr —One thousand conversions resumed from the camp meetings held on the Atlantic seaboard last season.