CHAPTER II. A LITTLE BOY'S RESOLUTION.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 173, 9 October 1886, Page 8

CHAPTER 11. A LITTLE BOY'S RESOLUTION.

Louis Durbar had lived in the city all his life, and was a veritable little street Arab. Young as he was, he knew almost every nook and corner in the great metropolis, while not uufrequently he make exploring expeditions into the suburbs and surrounding country. On the day mentioned in the previous chapter he had wandered from the noisy, duety town in an aimles3 sort of way, a desire for the sight of green grass, bright flowers, and waving tree3 — a longing for the sound of lowing of cattle, the song of birds, and the hum of insect life, taking possession of his heart, and thus it waB he had strayed to the gates of Wallace Houghton's elegant estate, and become the guest of the wealthy gentleman's daughter. He was a poor neglected waif whose mother bad died very suddenly when he was but six months old, and of whose f&ther no one seemed to know anything. He would have been consigned to the questionable mercies of an orphan 's home or alms-house but for the good-nature and kindness of an humble woman, who being childless at that time, had felt#ier heart go out toward the motherless boy, and had taken him into her home and given him such care and attention as she could bestow. Had anyone observed him as he trudged back toward the city after the rare pleasure and treat which he had enjoyed at the birthday party, he would have been impressed by the expression of gravity and resolution on his young face. Reaching the city, he finally turned into a narrow alley in a poor locality, and climbed a somewhat dilapidated outside stairway leading into an humble dwelling. Opening a door, on reaching the top, and entering, he was greated by the shouts of noisy children, the steam of boiling clothes and the fumes of meat and vegetables, whilo a stout, red-faced woman looked up from the washing tub over which she was bending, and recognised him with a nod and a weary smile. Poor Mary Jones ! She had led a hard life during the last few years, John Jones, , her , husband, worked in a foundry near by, and when they were first married he was able to provide quite comfortably for himself and wife. But, he was, one of those easy-going fellows, with ,no push or energy, satisfied with his scant earnings as long as he had enough to eat and drink, or if not really satisfied, too indolent or indifferent to bestir himself and find something better to do, to improve his condition, so when added cares came, in the form of little ones of their own,

bis wife had to put her shoulder to the wheel, and by taking in fine washing and ironing, not infrequently earned more than her husband, besides performing her own heavy home duties. But hard 1 times and sickness kept them poor in spite of all this, and though the' mother often sighed to have her children, and the boy to whom ehe had given a home, and whom aho loved almoßt as well, ho poorly fed and scantily clothed, yet she Beemed powerless to help it. •• Where have you been, Louis ?"' she aßked, as the boy entered his humble home, caught up the younge3t child in his arms and gave him a toas in the air, greatly to the child's delight. He set the little one down, threw his apology of a hat upon the table, and, running his sunburnt fingers through the masses of dark hair upon his forehead, while a roguish twinkle gleamed in his eyes, he replied : " Been to a party, Aunt Mary." "What?" demanded the woman, somewhat sharply. "I have, 'pon my word, out on the Brookline road, too, to one ot them crack places, and I had ice-cream, strawberries, and cake with the cuteat little gimcraoks on the top you ever saw," and the lad smacked his lips over the remembrance of those rare dainties upon which he had feasted with such gusto. "Stop your * fooling, Louis, and talk Bense," returned the woman, gravely, while she bestowed a questioning glance upon him as if she feared he had been up to some mischief that might get him into trouble, "Truly, Aunt Mary, I'm not fooling," he answered, and then he told her the story of his adventure, greatly to the entertainment of all his listeners. One thing, however, he did not mention, and that was die gift he had received. He feared that his Aunt Mary would tell him he ought to give the money to her to use for the comfort of the family, and that he did not want to do. It was not because of the value of the money, but because of the giver, that he v, ished to keep it. Her touch, and the kindness that had prompted its bestowal, had rendered it sacred to him, and he had mentally resolved that he would keep it just as long as he lived. His story told, he fell to musing again, and sat for a long time without speaking to any one. But later in the evening, after they had had their simple supper, when John Jones had taken his pipe and gone out for a social smoke with some of his cronies, and the little ones were all in bed, he suddenly burst out with : "Why ain't everybody rich, Aunt Mary?" The woman was standing at the table ironing some fine, beautifully trimmed clothea belonging to a wealthy lady for whom she worked, and perchance something of the same thought was in her mind, for she heaved a deep sigh, set down the iron with a heavy tkud, and gave vent to a short, bitter laugh. "It takes sharp folks to get rich," she said, sharply : " folks who are always on the lookout for the best chances, and who are -willing to turn their hand to whatever comes aloog when it's hard times, instead of standing around on the corners, with their hands in their pockets, and wondering when work will begin. I wish I was a man," she concluded, witn an energy which betrayed she was feeling deeply on the subject. " What would you do if you were a man, Aunt Mary ?" Louis aaked, eagerly. The woman's face flushed a burning red, and a quick aob heaved her chest. She was thinking of those children at Margaret Houghton's party whom Louis had described in such glowing terms to her. " I'd— never be content to settle down on a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, and let my children" — with a troubled glance at the boy's poverty-stricken appearance, and a wistful look toward the room where her own little ones were sleeping — " go anyhow, and my wife stand six or eight hours a day at a wash-tub to help support them." '• But what if you couldn't get more than that?" "IwowWget more than that ; how do you suppose the rich get rich ? Some are ' born with a silver spoon in their mouth,' I know, but more make their own money, and have to begin on little, too. I suppose I'd take a dollar to begin with, but I'd keep my eyes open, and instead of walking about the streetß with a dirty pipe in my mouth, or gossiping at a corner grocery, I'd look about me, after my day's work was done, for something better, and —I'd have it, too. "But don't you suppose the 'men are tired after working all day in the foundry ?" questioned Louis, well knowing that she was referring to her husband. " Tired ? I suppose they are ; but don't you suppose a woman gets tired, too?" demanded Mary Jones, bitterly ; " and yet instead of sitting down with folded hands to rest, or going to her neighbour's to gad after shehas gone her day's work for a family of six, she can atand at a wash-tub, or iron-ing-table, half the night, and earn as much, if not more, than her husband has earned all day ; while he, poor soul ! thinks he can't even do a few hours about the house to help her after her ten hours' task is done. I know &cores of women who drudge sixteen hours out of every twenty-four and half support their families, and yet their husbands grumble if they are asked to split a tew kindlings or sift alittle aahes, or mind the baby for half an hour." " I am sorry, Aunt Mary, that you have to work so hard," Louis paid, regarding her tired face regretfully. 4% I wish you hadn't quite so many to work for." The woman gave him a sharp, questioning look. "La, child ! I didn't mean to complain— .the Lord knows there are harder lots than mme — only it seems to me, sometimes, that if I was a man, well and strong, I'd want to be as smart as anybody e139. I'd hate to see my children looking like little beggars, and my wife working her fingers to tho bone, when perhaps my neighbours were tidy and thrifty, and happy, and perhaps laying by a snug penny for a rainy day." "I'm glad my children are all boys," she went on, after a few moments of silence, during which she had been plying the iron vigorously, every stroke seeming to speak of regret over hopes unfulfilled. " I'd feel bad to have a girl grow up to have three or four children of her own, and have to do both man's and woman's work to keep the breath of life in them, and then not half live either. Before I was married I used to think what a nice, home I'd have when John and I got settled ; what pretty things I'd make for it 'and my children ; how neat and tidy they should look when I eont them to school, and how, perhaps, I'd get tini 9 now and then to read a nice book myself ; but, deary me ! it has taken me every blessed minute to help earn enough to keep them from going hungry, and I suppose I've got to drag on to the end the dame way. A heavy sigh concluded the pathetic sentence, and, as sheturned to the stove to« exchange her iron, she slyly wiped a tear ! from her eye with the Corner of her apron. Louis saw it, however. ' ! " I wish I was a mac thia minute, and I'd earn something to help you, Aunt Mary," be said, looking up at her with a flushed face and sad yet eager eyes.

, " You've always been a good boy, Lotas, and T wish I could have done bettdr by you,. ' for' your mother' was a little lady/ if there eye" waa one," she replied earnestly. Do you., suppose I've got- any relations anywhere!" the lad questioned, after another thoughtful silence " •' "Goodness only knows, child. All / know about you is that- your poor mother came here when you were three or four months old. She was, a pretty little thing, and sickly looking. She hired one room of - me and always paid the rent promptly, but where she got the money, or how she ever' lived, is more than I can tell. She had a . dreadful cough, and grew weaker and ; weaker every day, though I used to take her up a bite to tempt her appetite now and then when we had something nice, which we often did in thoee days. But, three months from the day ehe came here,, I went in to see her in the morning and found her dead in her bed, and you sleeping as sound as a top beside her. She had burst a blood vessel in the night while coughing, and died all by herself, with no I one to do her a kind turn." ' «He had heard something of this etory before, though not quite so many of the details. " She had a little money in an old wallet, Mary Jones resumed,' " besides a gold chain and a beautiful ring with a great pearl in it, I had to sell those, though, to get money enough to buy her. She hadn't any clothes to speak of, and was about as poor as any one could well be. I thought I Bhould find something to tell me who she was, but there wasn't a letter or a scrap of anything to show that she had a friend in the world. There was only her weddingring and a little book of poetry, with her name, 'Annie, and a veree underneath, written in a nice gentlemanly hand and signed • A—,' to tell that she'd ever belonged to anybody. I hadn't the heart to sell that ring, for I thouerht you'd value it if you lived to grow up. ' " Have you the book of poetry now, Aunfc Mary?" Louis aeked, wiping the tears from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. " Yes, I put it away with the ring." ••May I look at it?" The boy's voice trembled and his lips quivered aa he made nig request, The woman net down her iron, and goingto a bureau that stood in a corner of the room, unlocked a drawer and took from a small box. Thi3 she brought and handed to the child. He reverently opened the box. A small volume of Tennyson's poems, bound in blue and gold , lay withia it, together with another very small box. He took out the book and opened it afc the fly leaf, and read there, penned in clear, beautiful characters ; "Annie : " Whatever lot be mine. Long and happy days be thine, Ere thy full and honored age Dates of time its latest page. ' A." That simple initial, with the pen-pictur& of a tiny dove underneath, was all the signature there was to that food wish. Young and unlearned as he was, hardly able to read the writing, he could not understand the full meaning of those tender lines ; but he instinctively felt as if a loving hand had penned them, and that "A ," whoever he or she might have been, must have loved his mother well. He slowly turned those gilt edged leaves, and his little face grew solemn and tender a3 he thought of those white hands, which once had turned the same pages, now lying folded, and cold in death. He closed the book after a while, and laid it tenderly back in the box, and then opened that other smaller one. It contained his mother's wedding ring — a small heavy hoop of gold with simply the date of her marriage engraven on its inner surface. This also, after a little while, he reverently replaced in the box. " Do you suppose 'A 'was my father ?" he asked at last, a perplexed, almost distressed look in his dark eyes. "Bless you! I don't know any more than you do," returned Mrs Jones, who had been closely observing him. " Your mother never told me anythine about herself. I suppose she hadn't any idea that she was going to die so soon, poor thing. If ohe had she might have said something about you and left some word telling what she wanted done with you. As I told you before, she was a pretty little thing, and as sweet in her ways as could be, while you were as fine a baby boy as ever the sun shone on, and it's a pity, if your father was living, that he couldn't have had you. My own children hadn't come then, or I suppose I should have thought I had enough to care for, but I hadn't the heart to send you to the asylum, and John got better wages then. I had a carpet on the floor then, and pretty curtains at the windows, and we were very comfortable. I've kept on growing fonder of you all the time, and you've been a help to me in taking care of the children. I'm only so^ry I couldn't have done better for you," she concluded, sorrowfully. "You've been very good to me, Aunt Mary, and I'll pay you for it sometime. I won't be a ; poor boy always — I'll make something yet. If there are chances in the world for others, I guess there is one for me somewhere— l'll find it, and then I'll make the most of it," said Louis Dunbar, with a resolution not common to one so young; "It's rather hard," he went on, musingly," " not to know who you really are or what your father was. Perhaps I have relations who would be glad to help me if they knew about me. But I'll pee what I can do for myself, and I'll bat I will have a pile of money some time, and then I %ha'n't; lob you work as hard as you do now, Aunt Mary." Mrs Jones laughed good-naturedly over these bright visions of youth — frail aircastles that soon would crumble and fall. " I hope you won't be disappointed," she said, adding with the old bitterness in her voice; " But whatever you do, don't you ever ask a girl to marry you until you are sure you can take care of her. Better stay single all your life than make a drudge of your wife and let your children come up anyhow," "I won't," was the eager reply. "If I ever want a wife, I'll get a house first to put her in— a nice one, too — and money ahead to help take care of her. May'l keep these now?" he asked, after a moment, holding up the box she had given him. "I'd like to, and look at them by myself once in a while " " If I thought you wouldn't lose them," Mrs Jones began, reflectively. " I won't," Louis interrupted. " I have a box that locks,you know. I'll put them in that, and be just as careful as I. can be of them " "Yes, you may have them," said Mary Jones. And, bidding her good-night, the boy crept away to his little loffc above the hot kitchen, where,- alter storing his treasures safely away in the " box that locked " he threw himself upon his bed,, and was soon fast asleep and dreaming* that a graceful figure, with a sweet, * fair face, came and bent fondly over him, and that reaching up hia arms, he placed them about her nsck . and called her " mother." i (To be QontlmieHi)