THE OLD MAN SMILED.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2629, 12 June 1877, Page 2

THE OLD MAN SMILED.

One time there was a good old man living in Detroit. His back was bent, his step was slow, and men who gazed upon his snowy locks and wrinkled face whispered to each other:

"Heis a good old man who has not long to live." The old man had been well off. in his . day, but when he found himself on the ; shady side of life, wife dead and home broken up, said he to his son. " Here, William, take all I hare and let your home be my home until I die.' 1 The son took the papers—you bet he did! and the father was given* a cozy corner, a big chair, and a corn cob pipe. All went well for a year or so, and then the son's wife began to make it uncomfortable for the nice old man in the corner. They threw out hints, deprived him of his comforts, and one cold, day in winter he was told that he had better go to Halifax—Nova Scotia.

The old man's.heart was sore as he went out into the world to battle against hunger and cold, and when night came he cowered on a doorstep and wept like a child. ■

. " Who is making that chin-music up there ? " called the reporter, whose steps had been arrested by the sobs, and he went up the steps, pasted the old man on the head, and, by and by, the story was told.

" Come down to the station with me," said the reporter, taking the old man's arm. " Your son is the first cousin to the man who preferred buzzard to lamb, and I'll help you to fir him I" . j Next morning one of the daily papers contained an item to the effect that an ;61d gfhtleman named Goodbeart had been found wandering the streets at night and that when taken to the station 10,000 dollars worth of United States bonds were found on him. The old man read it over three times, slapped his leg as he saw the point, and a beautiful smile covered his face and climbed up through his hair. In about an hour his son William rushed into the station and called out:

" Father, dear father, come home! All of us were crying all night long, and my wife is now lying in a comatose state on youv account 1 " The old man went home with him, winking at the lamp posts and smiling as he turned the corners. He had all his comforts back, and the son bought him a costly pipe and a pair of boztoed boots that very day. Well, as time went on the son ventured to suggest that the bonds had better be turned over to him, and every time he said " bonds " the old man would smile and torn the subject to milk cans Okthe necessity of counterfeiters taking fibre pains with their lead nickels. The other day the father went to bed to die, and smiled oftener than before as he lay waiting for the summons. The son said his heart was breaking, and then went through^ the old man's clothes to find bonds. He searched the barn, and the garret, and the cellar, and finally when he saw that death was near, he leaned over the old man and whispered:.... "Father, do you know me ?" " Oh, yes—l know you like a book," replied the dying man. "And, father, don't you see that this thing is almost killing me?'',

" Yes, William, I see it."

" And, father—those—bonds,youknowv ■I suppose you want them used to purchase you a monument P " " Correct, William," whispered the father, winking a ghastly wink, and as that same old smilo covered his face death came to take him to a better home.

When evening fell and the son and the son's wife were wildly searching the straw bed to get their hands on those bonds, a reporter stood under the gas lamp across the street and with his thumb on his nose he sweetly called oat: " Sold again and got the tin—next filial son step forward !"