The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1849-09-14
From the Western Magazine

sheep, or the culture OF cabbage, or
anything but what it really was-and
carelcssly turning over the leaves,
our eyes rested upon the following
little incident, Which, were one in a
thinking mood, would furnish album
dant material for sermon or a song
As the story ran, somewhere in the
north of England, lived a worthy
gentleman, whose wealth consisted
in very genteel wife, a very rockey
estate, and tender heart. That do
main of his was very forbidding al-
fair indeed /; broken, stony and ste
rile, as Arabia and Petraa. Quite
disguised he became with it, and
nothing but the thought that it was
the old homestead, prevented ms
desertingit altogether. He looked
around upon the possessions of his
neighbors, their velvet lawns, and
rustling groves, and would have en-
We'd them, had there been room in
his heart for such a sentiment. One
day lie went up to London, to see
what could be done, and ere he re-
turned, entered a jewelers. to pur-
chase some little gift for his wife at
home. The variety puzzed him sad
Il y. Now this, then that attracted
his attention, and half determined
his selection, but there was one trim
ket, after each examination; amid
the display of ring, brooch, and
brac elet, that acted like q magnet
upon his eyes: a necklace Of cxqui-
site finish. Hitherto the thought OF
so magnificent thing, might exceed
his means, had determined him from
selecting it. But as he held it up.
turned it in the light, and admired it
for the tenth time, the beauty and
the magnitude of the stones it con-
tanned, and thought of lis dear little
wife at home, he summoned courage
and enquired the price. The shop
mans reply astonishcd him; the
sum named was not half what lie an
ticipated.
"And may ask you, sir" cnqui-
red the Englishman, started for the
moment into being a Yankee, "may
ask You how you are enabled TO
sell it at aprice so inconsiderable ?'
"Why," replied the worker in
gold, "these stones you admire so
much, are from no foreign mine, and
cost me little else than the labor OF
polishing and finishing them"
"And whence are they procured"
enquired the purchaser.
"From IS manor in the north
was the brief response.
II ,caS on lis O,Cn estate.
The worthy Franklin took the
necklace and wendell his way home
The morning after his return, had
you been there, you might have seer
him with necklace in one hand, and
staff in the other, setting out on a
voyage of discovery over stony
acres. Every where around him
the ground was strown with insight.
ly fragments gray rock. Down he
got upon his knees and picked up {
piece, brushed away the sand thai
covered it, and held the two, the
neclace and the stone, side by side
"Pshaw - and away whirled th,
stone, as if discharged from a greci
an catapult. But as it fell, it wa
broken. The sun shown brightly
and as his contcmptuous glance fel
upon the rough but innocent consti
tucnt of his estate, tie light was re-
Elected from this new fracture to hi
eye. He sprang forward, picked i
up, and 10! the same veins ant
clouds he had so much admired il
the necklace dim, indced-coarsc
unpublished, but they were there
and so the unseemly incumbrance,
he had before despised, with little
skill and little toll, had been trans
formed into ornaments BETTING tn,
bosom o! beauty, which he had ac,u
ally gone away from home-up t.
London TO admire, and actually fear
edto ask the price o(these fragment
, of his own estate lest they might b.
: too costly for him to purchase,-Oh
= many are the men and women to
u day, blessed with the North Of Eng
, land estates in the mental worlt
u who are signing over powers so I'm
J. equal TO their aspirations, and envy
y ing those who have enriched them
u selves from what they deemed til
: rubbish of their own. Many ar
= they, whose intellectual domain
" strown with native thoughts, I'll,
only need the patience and the po
{ ish, TO make them jewels, and the
: wearers kings and queens. Man
r are decked in regalia, while thos
:. from whom they stole it, are III
y humblest in their train-nay, graf,
full for the beauty Of q smile. A sa
u thouuht. alasi hut ssower ow.