WANTED WORK.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 731, 22 February 1877, Page 2

WANTED WORK.

(jF^ou/tho V Burlington Hawkeye.") & robust tramp called at a house ouj; on Ninth -street, yesterday, for something to eat, averring that he had not tasted food this week. ' Why don't you go to work ? ' asked the lady to whom he profferel his petition. ' Work ! ' he ejaculated, ' work ! And what have 1 been doiug ever sinse the middle of May but hunting work? Who will give me work ? When did I ever refuse work?' ' Well,' said the woman, ' I guess I can give you some employment. What cau you do V 'Anything !' he shouted in a delirious joy. ' Anything that any man can do. lam sick for something to fly at. Why, only yesterday I worked all day carrying water in an old sieve from Flint river and emptying it into the Mississippi, just because I was so tired of hav.ing nothing to do that I had to work at something or go raving crazy, I'll do anything, from cleaning house to building a steamboat. J est give me work, ma'am, an' you'll neVsi^hear me ask for bread again.' "^< * The lady was pleased at the willingness and anxiety of this industrious man to do something, and | she led him to the wood pile. 'Here,' she said, *you can saw and split this wood, and if you are a good industrious worker, I will find work for you to do nearly all winter. * Well, now,' said the tramp, while a look of disappointment stole over his face, ' that's just my luck. Only three days ago I was pulling a blind cow out of a well for a poor blind widow woman, who had nothing in the world but that cow to support her, an 1 1 spraint my right wrist till I aint been able to lift a pound with it sinst. You can jest put your hand on it now and feel it throb ; it's so painful and inflamed I could just cry of disappontment ; but it's a Bible fact, ma'am, that I couldn't lift that axe above my head ef I died fur it, and I'd jest as lief let you pull my arms out by the roots, as to try to pull that saw through a lath* Just set me at something I kin do, though, if you want to see the dust ' Very well, N said the lady, ' then you can take these flower beds which have been very much neglected, and weed them very carefully for me. You caii do that with your well band, but I wuut you to be very particular with them, and get them very clean, and not injure any of the plants, for they are all very choice, and I am proud of them.' The look of disappointment that had been chased away from the industrious man's face when he saw a prospect of something else to do, came back deeper thati ever as the lady described the new job, and when she concluded, he had to remain quiet for a moment before he could control his 3niotion sufficiently to speak. 'If I uin't the most onfortnit man in Ameriky,' he sighed, ' I'm jist dying for work, crazy to get something to do, and I'm blocked out of work at every turn. I jest love to work among flowers and dig in the ground, but I never dassent do it, fur I'm jest blue ruin among the posies. Nobody ever cared to teach me anythin* about flowers, and its a gospel truth ma'am, I can't tell a violet fromi a sunflower, nor a red rose from a dog fennel. Last place I tried to get work at, the woman of the house set me to work weedin' the garden, and I worked about a couple of hours, monstrous glad to get work, you bet, an 1 I pulled- up every last living green thing iu that yard. Hope I may die ef I didn't. Pulled up all the grass, every blade of ie. SEYSefc, Pulled up a vine wuth severity^five dollars, that had roots reachin' clear under the cellar aud into the cistern, and I yanked 'em right up, every fibre of 'em. Woman was so heart broke when she come out and see the yard just as bare as the floor of a brick yard that they had to put her to bed. Bible truth they did, ma'am, and I had to work for that house three months for nothin' and fiud my board, to pay for the damage I had done. Hope to die ef I didn't. Jest gimme suthin' I kin do, I'll show you what work is, but I wouldn't dare to go fooling round no flowers. You've got a kind heart, ma'am, gimme some work ; do not send a despairing man away hungry for work.' 'Well/ the lady said, 'you can beat my carpets for me. They have jusc been taken up, and you can beat them thoroughly, and by the time they are done I will have something else ready for you.' The man made a gesture of despair, and sat down on the ground, the picture of abject helplessness and disappointed aspirations. ' Look at me now,' he exclaimed. ' What is goiug to become of me ? Did you ever see a man so down on his luck as me ? I tell you ma'am you must give me somethin' I can do. I wouldn't no more dare to tech those carpets than nothiu' in the world. I'd tear 'em to pieces. I'm a awful hard hitter, an' the last time I beat any carpets was for a woman out at Creston, and I just welted them carpets into strings aud carpet rags. I couldn' help it, I can't hold my strength. I,m too glad to get to work, that's the trouble with me, ma'am ; it is a Bible fact. I'll eat them oarpets if you say so, but I won't be responsi-

ble fur Wvno^^me wo^k fo nothing for five ov W weeks to.pay tearin': 'm intp .sKts,. you know, I U go at 'em ef you'llsay the word andj take the responsibility, vbu,t the fact is I'm loo. : hard : u worker to go 1 foolin' around carpets, that's just' what I am. '. ' , ' The lady excused the energetic worker from .going at, the carpets, but was puzzled what to set him'at. Finally she. asked him : what there was he would like to do, and could do, with safety to himself and the work. ■..-.-.■ ' Well, now,' he said " * that's consid?rit, and I'll take a hold and do something that'll give /oil the wuth of your money,' and won't 'give me no chance to destroy' 1 nothiri' by working jtpo hard, at it. If you'll jusV Mcli s i»e. out Wr^ckiiig (ihiair,! I'll sit down 'in We. shade arid keep the cows from liftin'.the latcUiOi the front gate and: getting; into;[ th© yard, and I'll do it well and only charge : you reasonable' fbriti, ! <f6f the fact is Via. so dead c'ra^y ■ for work that is not*. b'|g, pay I >vant so much' as a steady job.', . /,.' ,■'.. j \ ;j'. And when he was rejected and sent forth jobless and breakfastless to M-ander upland down the cold, unfeeling wld^ii sefti?chyof^oik, he c>«t' slb^OT^^Cß^lioiise^lnd saia in "ctqjqcted tbnes^-1 'j . : . ! Ki ' 1 V j 'There, now, that's jest the way. They call us & bad' lotj and say^we're lazy, and theives, and won't work, when a feller i^ jest" cr^y r ¥o- work, and nobody won' rgive liimnaryajob that he can- do ! . ■ ' Wori ? t J work ! Land alive/ they. wbn?t givers woA an' whenj we want toi r and ( try tc>, they won t let us wotk. ' There ain/t ; a man in ; Ameriky.;'ud \yp,rk as^hp,rd and stiddy as I wouldif they gimme a chance.'