Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1875 — Youths’ Department. [ARTICLE]

Youths’ Department.

THE STORY OF A BTOYE.

BY OLIVE THORNE.

To begin with, I am very beautiful, clear and pure, and without flaw. Men pay high prices for me and show me with pride to their friends. Women gaze delightedly on me, and place me carenilly on arm or neck, and I am safely locked in an iron box every night—for lam a diamond. Do not think, these things make me proud, dear little friends. Too well.do I remember the troubles through which I have come to be prized, I began life as an humble stone on the bottom” of a river in Brazil. There I rolled about in the mud, with other stones, a rough pebble, thinking the bed of the river was the whole world, and the fishes that lived there were the most powerful and important inhabitants of it. My adventures began on the day when I was violently scooped up with some of the mud and thrown into a sort of a long box. The water ran through it; so I thought it was only a smaller river. But when all the dirt was washed out the water was dried off, and I found myself in a box with a great many other stones of all sizes. Then for the first time I saw a man, and he was black. He was stooping over the box and picking out the stones. Every moment he threw one away, and I waited my turn; but when he saw me he snatched me up hastily and slipped me into his mouth, where he hid me over behind his teeth. The inside of a man’s mouth is not a nice place to be, and I was very glad when he took me out and put me in a small bag where I found several companions of my own kind. I had just time to see, before I went into the seclusion of the bag, that I was in a small hut of some sort, and the negro was alone. In that dirty bag, stuffed into a dark hole, I lived for some time. Every now and then the bag would be opened and another unfortunate prisoner thrust in. But our day of release came. We were all carried oft’ and sold to the Captain of a vessel; after which we went through several hands, till at last we came to a workshop, where for a time our travels ended and the process of removing our rough coats to display our beauty began. Then I was separated from my companions, and never saw them again; or if I did I did not know them, for if they went through the same operations that 1 did I should never know them. The first man that went to work on me was called a cleaver. He _ examined me closely and studied my shape and size for some time, till he made up his mind in what way he could shape me with the least waste of my weight. For now I learned that weight makes a great difference in value, and if I had been twice as heavy as I was I would be worth four times as much.

I was a fair, shapely stone, about as thick as I was wide, and so it was my fate to be cut into a brilliant. If I had been rather thin I should have been cut into a rose diamond; and if very thin—flat, in fact—into a table diamond. But I was to be a brilliant, and was to have cut first a table or flat top; then a crown, composed of a great many flat sides of different shapes; and then a collet (which is all below my setting and out of sight) of ever so many more sides.

Maybe you think that was not much work. But let me tell you about it. The workman took a sort of stick with a small cup on the end of it. The cup was full of cement, which he heated over a lamp till it was soft and then stuck me into the hot, sticky mass. I did not like it very well, but I couldn’t help myself; for as the stuff cooledlt became so hard that I thought I had found my grave and should never be free again. I soon found out my mistake; for the man at once went to work on the side that stuck out from the cement. First he worked at my hard surface with a thin slice which had been cut off some other diamond, till he made a notch in the direction he wanted to cut off. Into the notch he put a thin piece of steel and tapped it once or twice, till it split off a thin slice. Then he heated the cement again and took me out. Just as I was exulting in my freedom he stuck me in again, leaving another side out. So he went on, sticking me into the cement, where I was perfectly helpless, and slicing a bit off my side, until he had cut all the sides he wanted and I was roughly cut in the shape of a brilliant; though I didn’t know mhch about it then, for I had very little education as yet. The next thing I had to endure was cutting, which was done by another man, and was nothing more nor less than imprisoning me in the same cement walls and making each side of perfect shape and smooth by rubbing against a fellow-dia-mond of my own size. The workman was very careful to catch every bit of the dust in a brass box, for you must know that even thedustof adiamond is valuable. I thought, surely, when I had passed through that man’s hands that I must be finished and would be allowed to rest in peace; but alas! peace is not for me. I only went on to the hands of a polisher. He took me up in a pair of pincers and thrust me into a cup of hot lead, in which he buried me till only one of my sides could he seen. He then smeared that side with some vile stuff—olive oil and diamond dust, I heard them say—and fixed me so that I just touched a wheel which was turning around very fast. This performance made me very hot and rubbed my exposed side very smooth, I can tell you. Every little while the polisher would come and lift me up, plunge me into water to cool and then look to see how I was getting on. When that-side was sufficiently polished he heated the lead and placed me in a new position. So he went on till every one of my numerous bides was beautifullypolished and I was a finished brilliant. Then I began to" appreciate my own wonderful beauty. I found out how valuable I was, and that all these painful operations were necessary to bring out the full glory of my beauty. And I’ve heard that a similar process—that is, of rough rubbing in the world—is necessary to bring out the true beauty of people as well as of diamonds. A l ' hat a change in my life. 1 No more rough bags, no more negroes’ mouths, no more'muu-bedsfor me. Henceforth I lay upon velvet or satin cushions, sat in a superb seat of gold, and belonged to the choice and beautiful things of the world. But through all the various and delightful adventures of my life since leaving the workman’s hands I have never forgotten that I was once a rough stone and laj in the mud, nor tliat my own sister is a niece of black charcoal and has no more beautifui destiny than to light a fire. I cannot tell you what ifiy life has been since I entered the world of gems alhd was placed by a jeweler in an elegant bracelet. 1 have been bought and sold many times and have seen so much of human hearts ' that I should not know where to begin my

story. Besides I have had the misfortune never to see the end of anything. Just when I get* the most interested in the story of my owner 1 am sure to be sold, or given away or lost. I would like, however, to tell you about two or three of my own family who are wonders pf the gem world and who have their histories, as well as your ' great men. One —the diamond of the Great Mogul—is large as half a hen’s egg and about that shape. It is worth two and a half millions of dollars. The Kohinoor, or Mountain of Light, be longs to the Queen of England. It is worth ten millions and is about an inch and a half across. The King of Portugal has a diamond as large as a hen’s egg. It is said to be worth two hundred and eighty-five millions of dollars. Shall I show you what a long string of figures that makes? $285,000,000! Strange and wonderful stories are told of some of the world’s large diamonds; but I have no time to tell them to-day. There ’ have been and gtill are many superstitions about our family. It is considered by many an omen of bad fortune to lose a diamond, and the royal family of one of the East India Islands has a monster of a diamond which is celebrated for the cures effected by the sufferers bathing in water in which the gem has been steeped.— N. Y. Independent.