THE NEWSBOY'S DEBT.-H. R. HUDSON. Only last year, at Christmas-time, While pacing down a city street, I saw a tiny, ill-clad boy One of the thousands that we meet As ragged as a boy could be, With half a cap, with one good shoe; Dodging about among the crowd, Shouting his "Extras" o'er and o'er; And there confections, all adorned With wreathed and clustered leaves and flowers, While little founts, like frosted spires, Tossed up and down their mimic showers. He stood and gazed with wistful face, Then started, as I touched his arm, Raised his torn cap with purple hands, That marked his cheek with frosty rimes. "How many have you? Never mind— He thanked me with a broad Scotch smile, And said, "You seem a little lad "To rough it in the streets like this." "I'm ten years old this Christmas-time!" "Your name?" "Jim Hanley." "Here's a bill— I've nothing else, but this one dime "Five dollars. When you get it changed "Where do you live?" "Most any where. Me and two others." "And you thought "And you are cold?" "Ay, just a bit. I don't mind cold." Why, that is strange !" So, with a half-unconscious sigh, I sought my office desk again: An hour or more my busy wits Found work enough with book and pen. But when the mantel clock struck five For there beside my hat and cloak Lay those six papers I had bought. "Why, where's the boy? and where's the 'change' He should have brought an hour ago? Ah, well! ah, well! they're all alike! I was a fool to tempt him so. "Dishonest! Well, I might have known! "But caution often comes too late." PPPP* Just two days later, as I sat, Half dozing, in my office chair, I heard a timid knock, and called, In my brusque fashion, "Who is there?" An urchin entered, barely seven The same Scotch face, the same blue eyes— And stood, half doubtful, at the door, Abashed at my forbidding guise. "Sir, if you please, my brother Jim- "He didn't mean to keep the 'change;' He wasn't rightly in his head. "They took him to the hospital- "He had that money in his hand, "He was afraid that you might think "He made me fetch his jacket here; It's only fit to sell for rags, But then, you know, it's all he had! "When he gets well-it won't be long- He says he'll work his fingers off And then he cast a rueful glance "Where did they take him? Just run out A half hour after this we stood Together in the crowded wards, I thought him smiling in his sleep, From brow and cheek, "The boy is dead." Dead? dead so soon? How fair he looked! And something rising in my throat I turned away, and left a tear TAKING UP CARPETS. The annual ceremony of taking up and whipping and putting down carpets is upon us. It is one of the evils which flesh is heir to, and cannot be avoided. You go home some pleasant spring day, at peace with the world, and find the baby with a clean face, and get your favorite pudding for dinner. Then your wife tells you how much younger you are looking, and says she really hopes she can turn that walking-dress she wore last fall and save the expense of a new suit, and then she asks you if you can't just help her about taking up the carpet. Then she gets a saucer for the tacks and stands and holds it, and you get the claw and go down on your knees and begin to help her. You feel quite economical about the first three tacks, and take them out carefully and put them in the saucer. Your wife is good about holding the saucer, and beguiles you with an interesting story about how your neigh bor's little boy is not expected to live till morning. Then you come to the tack with a crooked head, and you get the claw under, and the head comes off, and the leather comes off, and the carpet comes off, and as it won't do to leave the tack in the floor, because it will tear the carpet when it is put down, you go to work and skin your knuckle, and get a sliver under the thumb nail, and tell your wife to shut up about that everlasting boy, and make up your mind that it does not make any difference about that tack; and so you begin on the corner where the carpet is doubled two or three times and has been nailed down with a shingle nail. You don't care a continental about saving the nail, because you find that it is not a good time for the practice of economy; but you do feel a little hurt when both claws break off from the claw, and the nail does not budge a peg. Then your manhood asserts itself, and you arise in your might and throw the carpet claw at the dog, and get hold of the carpet with both hands, and the air is full of dust and flying tacks, and there is a fringe of carpet yarn all along by the mop board, and the baby cries, and the cat goes anywhere anywhere out of the world, and your wife says you ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk so,-but that carpet comes up. Then you lift one side of the stove, and your wife tries to get the carpet from under it, but can't because you are standing on it. So you try a new hold; and just after your back breaks the carpet is clear. You are not through yet. Your wife don't tell you any more little stories, but she gets your old coat and hangs it on you, and smothers you with the carpet, and opens the back door and shoves you out, and intimates that the carpet needs whipping. When you hang the tormenting thing across the clothesline the wrong way, and get it righted, and have it slide off into the mud, and hang it up again, and get half a pint of dust and three broken tacks snapped out of the northwest corner into your mouth by the wind, you make some observation which you neglected to mention while in the house. Then you hunt up a stick and go for that carpet. The first blow hides the sun and all the fair face of nature behind a cloud with the wind square in your face, no matter how you stand. You wield that cudgel until both hands are blistered, and the milk of human kindness curdles in your bosom. |