A GLAD NEW YEAR. [By Miss Julia Edwards.]

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 84, 10 January 1885, Page 4

A GLAD NEW YEAR. [By Miss Julia Edwards.]

Pale, toil-worn, and sad, Widow Dulu Walker sat at her hired machine, making fine shirts at 5a a dozen, earning barely enough to pay the rent of her one little room, for the machine, and bread for her sickly child, with a pint of watered milk once in a long while for her poor little thing — only six year 3 old and never well from its birth. Her own diet was bread and Croton water, for every cent above the calls we have named had to go for oil for the lamp which she burned at her toil till long after midnight. Meat she never tasted, a fresh egg was beyond her reach— she had no strengthening food, and it was no wonder she grew even more thin and pale day by day. When she married Stephen Walker against the will of her wealthy father, the former was a dashing young broker—handsome and ambitious, but rash in speculation and careless in expenditure. Her father disowned and disinherited her, but for one year she was unutterably happy. Then reverses came suddenly upon Ber husband— loss after loss drove him to desperation, and within two weeks after a girl baby was born to her, Dulu Walker was the widow of a suicide. Her hueband took his life, and did not leave enough for his burial expenses. In her wild agony the poor widow, not then eighteen years of age, wrote to her father for help. His answer was prompt and brief, These were his words : " You made your own fate — abide it. I have not a penny for an inqrate." She sold her jewels, all but her weddingring, and buried her poor husband as well as she could. She gave up the elegant flat they had occupied, took a small room, looked for work, got it after long waiting, small as it was, and for five years just existed. "Isn't it almost Christmastime, mamma?" asked her wan little daughter one day, when the poor widow let the machine stop a moment, for she was so tired she could hardly move the treadle. "Yes, Jessie, Christmas comes to-morrow, and I shall buy a nice pie for you and all the sweet milk you can drink. I have saved a shilling on purpose." "Dear, good mamma— you shall have half of it !" And the little girl brightened at the thought. "Ours will be a dreary Christmas, dear, and a sad New Year, for I dare not stop my work a single hour. Even on SundaysGod forgive me, I cannot help it— l have to work, or we'd perish." " Poor mamma ! And you are hungry now— l know it— you gave me the last bread in my milk/ "Never mind, my darling, I am on the last shirt of four dozen — I will take them to the store, get money, and buy more bread and pay the rent. It is due to-night. I have to pay it every week or we would have no home." •* I know, mamma. That cross old man is always here after it when the time comes, I hate him, he is so ugly 1" "You must not hate any one, dear Jessie. God made him so." " I wish he had made a better man while He wad about it !" said the child, whose

very misery had made her wise and old for her years. The widow smiled. She was used to such quaint sayings from those little white lips.

A week went by. Jessie had her pie and milk on Christmas, and even a 6d doll, dressed by her weary mother, added to the little girl's joy, but three days later exhausted nature gave way, and for three days the machine had been idle, while the hapless widow lay helpless on her wretched bed attended only by her little child. When the miserly landlord camo for his rent, there was no money to pay him, " STouVe gotto bundle right out of here !" he said, in his usual gruff tone. " I keep none but paying tenants " "Be merciful for my child's sake ! " moaned the widow. "In all these years I have paid up without fail ; I am sick now — at least let me stay here to-day. It is the 'New Year.' I am very sick and weak." "Yes, and like to get worse— maybe to die here. That would hurt the rent of the room. Tenants are afraid o1o 1 ghosts, though lam not. You've got to go ! " j " Merciful Father in Heaven, is there no help for the widow and the orphan ? " ■ sobbed the wretched widow. ■ "Go 'way, bad man— go way! You make my sick mamma cry ! " screamed little Jessie. "She'll cry in the poor-house before the sun sets 1" growled the sordid wretch. "Brute! Beast! She will rest within an hour in as fine a house as all New York can boast of !" cried a voice fierco with anger, as an old man of noble look strode forward. " Father— my own father !" gasped the widow, striving to rise. " Your once cruel but now repentant father !" he sobbed, as he knelt by her bedside and drew her thin form to his bosom, while he kissed away the fast falling tears. "I have looked for you and advertised for you these three years in all the papers !" he added. "I was too poor to buy papers," she said. " Is this my dear gran'pa?" asked Jessie, approaching him timidly. " \' es, darling — what is your namo ?" " Jessie, gran'pa ! Please make that bad man qo — he made mamma cry !" and Bhe pointed to the landlord. "Your bill!" sternly demanded the father. I "Ten shillinps, and cheap enough at j that," growled the'man. " Take it and go. In less than an hour my daughter will be in comfort, and her child will find a new home whence she never can be ejected. Now leave me alone with my child." The miser left, and Mr Fuller., a millionaire, who had found at last he had a heart, summoned his groom and footman and had his daughter carefully carried to his carriage. Thus it was a " Glad New Year " after all her sorrow.