Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1875 — How Truffles Did It. [ARTICLE]

How Truffles Did It.

I returned to Ashville after an absence of three years and found my friend Truffles grown fat and jovial, with a face the "vgry mirror of peace and self-satisfaction. Truffles was the village baker, and he was not like this when I went away. “Truffles,” said I, “how is it? You have improved.” “Improved! How?” “Why, in every way. What have you been doing ?” Just then a little girl came in with a tattered shawl, and barefooted, to whom Truffles gave a loaf of bread. " “Oli, deaf Mr. Truffles,” the child said, with brimming eyes, as she took the loaf of bread, “mamma is getting better, and she says she owes so much to you. She blesses you,jindeed she does.” “That’s one of the things I’ve been doing,” he said, after the child had gone. “ You are the suffering family bread?” I queried. “ Yes.” “ Have you any more cases like that?” “Yes, three or four of them. I give them a loaf a day, enough to feed them.” “And you take no pay?” ‘ Not from them.” “Ah! From the town?” “ No; here,” said Truffles, laying his hand on his breast. “I’ll tell you,” he added, smiling: “One day, over a year ago, a poor woman came to me and asked for a loaf of bread, for which she could not pay—she wanted it for her poor, suffering children. At first I hesitated, but finally I gave it to her, and as her blessings fang in my ears after she had gone I felt my heart grow warm. Times were hard, and there was a good deal of suffering, and I found myself wishing, by and by, that I could afford to give away more bread. At length an idea struck me, I’d stop drinking and give that amount away in bread, adding one or two loaves on my own account. I did it,' and it’s been a blessing to me. My heart has grown bigger, and I’ve grown better every way. My sleep is sound and sweet and my dreams are pleasant. And that’s what you see, I suppose.”