Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-05-14

out of order, and entailing no other expense
than the pen'orth Of oil per diem, for the lu-
IRRIGATION of its springs and wheels, and no
more trouble than the application Of 1t, he
could not have been more a cypher in the es-
timation of both clerks and master. Bob
cleaned and busted the desks and shelves
lhe could not reach the cobwebs, which
clouded the angles Of the ceiling like sable
drdpery.) he fetched and carried, he was &C.
tive and servile-like the poor drudge, he
was in numerous capacities. Every one in
the office found him the handipst fellow liv-
ing vet human, warm breathing, endowed
with life from God and made akin 10 high,
angelic beings, he was of less account than
a bird or beast from a foreign land would
have been. A sheet of parchment, covered
with the hyeroglyphics Of a dead mans will,
bequeathing a hundred acres, would have
outvslued ten thousand of such items in the
social scale, though every pair Of naked feet
had been ascending to Heaven by the ladder
which Jacob witnessed in his dream.
The lawyer was not a proud man, but he
had a beconiing pride, that gloss by which
the old serpent when he would disguise him
self as an angel retains his slough. The
pride Of the wcll-gloved exquisite, who scowls
at the weather-cbapt hands of humanity in
VSN' O'SO'"ihB P''ucf hO may ue d
catecumen to his own %conceit. The lawyers
humility had endured Bob's naked feet
through half the frosty season, when sudden
ly his becoming pride suggested that a naked
footed urchln was not a fitting mercury.
"Robert Racket" said the lawyer one
morning coming into the Office fresh from his
private dwelling, with extremities that the
frost had sharply bitten through well-season-
ed Wellingtons, "Robert Racket, where are
your boots
"Boots sir !" said Bob, trembling, as if
lie who had no shoes could be guilty Of boots.
Boots or Shoes" Numbered The lawyer.
" Shoes if you will"
"Or slippers" suggested a clerk, mildly.
"Shoes, sir. / amt got any," answered
Bob, shaking at the confession Of SO great a
turpitude.
"No4" said the lawyer, retreating a step
backwards. mot got any?" "Sparrow,
Ito a clerk this boy has a mother, a woman,
Sparrow, who is bound by the laws oil ma
ture TO have a heart, and she let's this boy 60
about in this Russian weather without shoes"
The clerk addressed as Sparrow, looked at
the offending feet, and the other clerks look
ed at them, and Bob himself looked at them.
Poor feet they were, blotched with chill
blains, red with the incessant torture of the
cold. Very poor, very offending, absolutely
wicked feet.
You may go, sir" said the lawyer
{" You may go. Pay him his threepence.-
He has not earned it, to be sure; but we will
not stop il. He wishes TO earn it, no doubt,
and we will take the will for the deed!'
"When you have got shoes, Racket, YOU
may come again. Good bye"
And the quotidian threepence was cut of.
And still the heavens sent forth a fercer
frost.
Fiercer and fercer. God be with the poor.
days, and shorter nights. February
month-the sun speeding toward the spring
%solstice. And still frost, frost, frost, biting
at the very core of life in rhinly clad human
lty. Heaven, in its mercy, sends few such
February's in a century.
Blessings be upon thy head, kind lady,
Seraph peace everlastingly dwell in thy
breast, for looking out of the window on that
bitter February morning, and giving shoes to
that poor child, not half the age of Bob
Racket, which drew the attention to its I'M
shod feet. and heels so deeply ribbed.
And the benediction of saints make thy
locks shine sun-bright in the Eternities-
thou aged minister of the word, who, meet
ing the poor barefooted girl in the street,
went with her to a shoe shop, and saw her
feet encased in warm, serviceable boots, pay
ing for them out Of thy own purse.
But Bob Racket got no shoes.
"Come, mother tell us that story again,
abont uncle Taddy," said Bob one evening
to his mother. The frost was not broken up,
but was more severe than ever. THAT sto-
ry about uncle jim, brave uncle Jim
"Story, Bob" sit amt a story, replied
his mother, y" its true"
eyes know it is-all's one-its as good
as a story, Pm sure.''
"Bless the boy you've heard it so often"
"Do tell it, MOTHER" said Bob's sister,
Kitty.
"Do, mother" said little Charley.
"Please, mother" said lesser Tommy.
"Oh do, mother" said Mary, least Of all,
except Henry and the baby, who were too
little 10 express any wish upon the subject.
This is it, them" said the good woman,
pleased herself to please her children. at
was where the great whales are"
But are there great whales asked Kit
ty.
"Ain't there %justl" cried Bob. "Yon
don't know. How should you :"
SIT was where the great whales are, and
your uncle was"
But We must relate the story, a poor sort
Of story, in our own way. The uncle was
brother TO Bob's mother, and went to sea in
his sixteenth year. Allured by a narrative
of a whaling expedition, he subsequently
Joined a crew destined for that fishery off The
coast of Greenland. Jim Taddy, brave jim.
Whose heart warmed not as he read in the
newspapers of the dive Jim had down into
the deep, half-frozen sea, where iceberg Jos
tied with iceberg, and the Polar air burnt SO
frore that the sailors became mutinousl
Fathoms deep (Bob's mother exaggerated
a little in her enthusiasm) among the ice he
went, 10 bring up a gentleman who had ioin-
ed the expedition from love of adventure, and
had fallen overheard while contemplating the
l%ustrous hues which the setting sun reflected
from the sky palaces of those extreme lati-
tudes upon the thousand peaks and pinnacles
OF ice. Brave jim Taddy! Brave uncle
Jim!
A very moor story. hnt Rob fnrnot he &c