Old Grumble on "Perseverance,"

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 141, 28 June 1888, Page 3

Old Grumble on " Perseverance,"

Showing how it always obtains a Reward of some sort. x"" ■■■ ♦"" ."' ." .- „ „~ So jmt last washing bee, -was « t 4gjM,f was it Mrs G; ?;-What ! all ■sjgmiirco my condemngfory remarks; is ingrajfiude if you like, it as a most praise--and giving my weight (which is not a trifle I in making the thing a success. was want of perseTerance that was H^i« cause Ma-am; had you been a more energetic you would have succeeded, for perseverance always meets with some sort of reward or other, and as an incentive to you to practice in future that cardinal virtue, let me recapitulate an instance. It is rather a tragic one, I admit, but that only makes it the more forcible. The subject was an old schoolmaster of mine, who entered life as a journeyman smith, but he was ambitious, and resolved never to rest until he became the first and the wealthiest of the craft. Not only by day did he work, but at night, by the 'fires ruddy glow, might be seen this grimy son of toil still -laboring away like a fiend in his element of fire. Obstacles he laughed at, and they disappeared at his contempt of them like bogeys at the break of day. Fortune could not but yield before sueh 'a persistent wooer, and at i last he stood a master, but he was not yet satisfied; he determined to possess a Nasmyth's hammer, and he rested not until he did. One day his tall, gaunt form, with a "hard hitter" hat on, was seen entering the yard accom-' panied by his son, who was an indolent young fellow, to view his latest acquisition, the Nasmyth. It was a moment; to be proud of, and as- he stepped upon the anvil and looked up at the massive hammer so delicately poised above him, he grew taller in his pride, thinner and more attenuated, while his hat loomed larger and larger in comparison, until the rim covered his shoulders, and he assumed the shape of a long stalked mushroom. Then, in a tone of reproof, he said to his son, " If I had been as idle as you are I should have not been worth a rap." The son, abashed at being so admonished, hung down his head and toyed aimlessly with the handle which controlled the ponderous engine. " But," continued the parent, " I am worth a lot." Whether he meant of raps will never be known, Mrs Grumble, for the weight came down with a crash and just at that particular moment he vanished. Slowly and nsQurafully the hammer was raised, there was the " hard Bitter" as -symmetrical and fresh as when it left the block, but the man! wheie was he ? Stern and inflexible as he had been, his hat was even as un* impressionable. The man had yielded, bat the hat had not, and his body had gone up inside. " Young man," said &c: coroner to the now contrite son, to the hatfull, "can you, in substance, discern aught of your father?" The young nan«g4Msd at the hat tearfully for a Moifrtint,: then exclaimed, "I can! I 4o!£; c oE£ow?" questioned the coroner, laconically. The son extended thf little finger of his white hand, and pointing to some horny substances which appeared distinctly amid the massvof buttons, clothes, and cold humanity, he moaned, "They are his corns j and his alone. It was but last night I rasped away at them for two hours/ ;Then -he lifted up his voice, and wept bitterly^ as he wailed, "Oh, my father! shall I cut your corns again ?" The filial affection of that young man brought tears to the eyes of the jurymen, and touched the heart of evenHßte old coroner, who, in a voice broken with emotion, said, "You cant- yon shall! As soon as {he inquest is . over they shall be restored to^you to cut and rasp away at as you like. They will make a good set of chessmen, light and durable." At this knowledge that he would hot lose the whole of his parent, but that all that was imperishable of him would remain, the son became reconciled to his bereavement. The obsequies wof that man were remarkable, four men carried to its last home the remains in a hat box bearing the inscription "Multum inparvo." To you, Mrs Grumble, that quotation is not significant, but to a contemplative ■ mind, how replete with meaning are "Hthose few words ? For never till the days of cremation did a man of his stature occupy so diminutive a coffin. What do you say, Mrs G. ? very touching; but you fail to see where the reward comes in ? Very probably ; but the son did not. He got it, and was so consoled by it that he did not bother about the chessmen, but gave the material as a souvenir to Old Gbumblb.