The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-11-06
WASHINGTON, D. C, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 1856

style, have been lately run up to a door in the
gable, formerly used for drawing up bales of
hay and bags of oats. window, containing
four panes of glass, has been cut by the side of
the door, through which light is sometimes
seen to shine of late. 1t is dark at the gable
tonight, but another time, and before very long,
we will climb up the steep stairs, and look in
at that small window.
hundred or more yards down the street.
and near the turnpike road leading through the
hollow, is small grocery store, with a large
window at one side of the door, on the sill of
which smoking lardamp is burning, and re-
veaiing variety of the articles sold within.
Amongst them, glass jar of picked beets, white
with a scum of mould at the top, and black
inch deep In the bottom with allspice and flies !;
another containing dozen sticks of red and
white candy, and yet another that holds few
spools of coarse cotton thread Several flat
blue-edged plates are displayed, garnished with
links and coils of stuffed sausages and clay
pipes, and tobacco in its various shapes, are
profusely exhibited. But the chief ornament
OF the window Is log-cabin, made of bars of
yellow soap, rooted with playing-cards, and
having tall chimneys running up at either end,
which are composed of tallow candles, crooked
and timber in the heat which the flaming stove
gives out. A gray cat with back bent high,
crouches beside the miniature cider barrel at
the door of the cabin, her feelers going out,
now and then, toward the plates of sausages
This house, like the other, has an outdoor stair.
way, and the upper floor is used as dwelling
by tall woman with snow-white hair, who
keeps boarders. The entire building appears
originally to have been dwelling as the
carved mantel-piece and coarse-howered paper
on the wall of the grocery room indicate. A
small room in the rear is let with the sale-room,
into md 20 H., A. G.
the storing of fish, molasses, soft soap, and
vinegar, and for other purposes, as we shall
shortly see. Over the front door, beaded and
carved like that of a parlor, yellow sign.board
announces, in big black letters, "David War
dell, First-rate Family Groceries, and no Mis-
take!n
In the small room mentioned, facetiously
termed by Mr.. Wardell the back parlor,"
there were seated, on the night that our story
opens, four men-two of them young, one mid
dle-aged, and the other bent and gray. What
seemed once to have been a shutter was laid
over the head of whisky barrel, and formed
sort of table, about which the company was
seated, and playing at "poker" with cards,
whose scarlet-colored kings and queens bore
the marks of much shutting" A Gagged owl
looked wisely and silently down from one of the
windows, and ridge of snow lay beneath the
door that led into what Mr. Wardell called his
" flower garden" but what might have been
more Enthusiastically designated s,ci,se field
The said door standing some FIVE feet from the
ground, and having no steps, may be supposed
to have been used by Mr.. Wardell as a pleas.
ant lookout.
"Whatare you rehectin' about, l say, BubbyP"
called Mr.. Wardell to his partner on the oppo-
site side of the shutter, taking putting cigar
from his mouth, shutting one eye, and atten-
lively regarding the young man he had called
Bubby with the other. A sudden color flashed
through the cheek of the person addressed, who
was probably ashamed of his absence of mind
upon so interesting an occasion; and brushing
hand which appeared to have been used to work
across his eyes, he said, apologetically, he did
not know what the ID had got into him that
night-he could not tell her majesty from the
tray!
"He-he he'll" cackled the bent old men, "You
have been too intimate with your bosom friend
for your own good or hers either, for that mat
ter. Don't you see how down in the mouth she
is?"-and he indicated the decanter at hand.
There was general roar, in which the absent
young man tried to join, but with so i'll grace
that he gave it up, and tried to swear; but his
beardless lip seemed not used to profanity, and,
making what seemed the effort Of all his ener.
gies, he resumed play with desperate determi
skill in his hand.
"Rake down the pile, partner I" cried the
bent old man; "the game is ours, as sure as
Jonah swallowed the whalel Boys, is there
any game you play better? Why, you don't
afford Teller common amusement. 'Spose,
partner, just for the sake of sweet charity, we
divide the pot, and give these boys chance
And tipping back in his chair, the little old
man made two or three nervous pulls at the
red velvet vest that lay in wrinkles across his
hollow chest. Then dropping together again,
and poking his fist in the side of the absent
young man, he added, with shocking vulgar
ity, and doubly so on the lips of 80 old man,
" Thinkin' about some gal, eh, Bubby? Take
this childs advice, now, and think of something
more profitable than anything whatsomever be-
longing to the pettcoat tribe. She's sly one,
now, my word for it, and Pm no chicken Blue
blazes if he don't look like motheress colt
Cheer up, BubLy, or give us a lock of your
hair, one of the six"
"Now, jest tack a stopper on your jaw can't
you, old Whitlesther," spoke tie middleaged
partner of the gayly- dressed old man. "Can't
you let colt have chance to harden in the
mouth little, before you pull him every which
way with your blamed hard bit. Every chap,
unless it's some SIGH a cussed old sinner as you
be, has ms melancholy reflections sometiMes.
And If Bub, here, wants to keep hissen to his
SELF why, is that any of your particular business
for to pry into? No, stree, Bub that's your
uncle's opinion" And the middle-a aged man,
who wore small gold rings in monstrous big ears,
and sat with his hat on, settled his chin in his
palms, end looked doggedly at his partner.
"Why, judge, yon been jinen' the ueeting2
'Spose an a Teller didn't know you was the true
grit, he'd as like as not take you for class
leader; men whatd become of your prospects
in the particular branch of business you're
engaged in?"
You may call me vhatsomeyer you please
1t don't make a man a COW, cause he's born ia
a stable; and it don't make calf man, cause
he happens to be born in house, nuther."
And the midde-aged man settled his chin more
firmly in his palms, and eyed the old Jockey
more sharply.
lTo BE CONTINUED.
PHOENIX, HIS LAST.
,Ia 40 H. ell