Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1857-08-12
LOCOMOTION.

completed. Quod erat faciundum.
LOCOM0TI0N.
FANNY FERN ON A TRAIN.-If you
want TO see unmasked human nature,
keep your eyes open in railroad cars and
on steamboats, See that man now, pour
ing over newspaper. while he is pass
ing through scenery where the shifting
lights and shadows make pictures every
instant, more beautiful than an artist
ever dreamed. See that woman, who
has journeyed with her four children
hundreds of miles alone-as l am proud
10 say women may safely journey in
America. (if they behave themselves y
travel stained, care worn and weary,
listening 10, and answering patiently and
pleasantly tie thousand and one ques-
tons of childhood, distributing to them
now a cracker. now a sip of water from
the ca>k in tie corner, brushing back
the hair from their flush brows while her
own is throbbing with the pain of which
she never speaks. In yonder corner are
two Irish women, each with little red
freited baby, in the universal Erin uni
form of yellow, their heads rolling help
lessly about in the humping cars, scream
ing Justify fer the comfort they well
know is close at hand, and which the
public are notified they have at last
found, by ludicrously instantaneous
suspension Of their vocifeIous cries.
Beautiful as bountiful provisions of Ma
ture! which, if there were no other
proofs OF God, would suffice for me.
There is surly old fellow. who
won't have the windows open, though
the pale woman beside him mutely en-
treats it with her smelling salts to her
nose. Yonder is an old bachelor, listen
ing to sweet, blue-eyed girl, who. with
uniasked faith in human nature, has
crept from her mothers side, and select.
ed him for an audience, to say-''that
once there was a kid, with two little
totty kids, and don't you believe that
one night when the old mother kid was
asleep" &c. No wonder he stoops to
kiss the little orator; no wonder she has
magnelized the watch from his pocket
"to hear what ii says; no wonder he
presses again his bachelor lips TO that ro-
gy little moull; no wonder, when the
distant city nears us, and the lisping
"good bye" is chirruped, and the little
feet are out of sight and sound, that he
sighs-G God and his soul know why!-
Blessed childhood-.hy shortest life
though but span, hath yet its mission
The tiniest babe never laid its velvet
cheek on the sod till it had delivered its
Makers message-heeded not then, per-
haps,-but coming 10 the wakeful ear in
the silent night-wa,ch, long after the
little preacher was dust. Rlessed child
hoo!
1t is funny, as well as edifying, 10
watch hotel arrivals; to see the dusty,
hungry. lack-lustre-eyed travellers drag
into the eating room-take their allotted
seats-enviod,ly regard those consumers
of dainties who have already had the
good fortune, by rank of precedence, TO
get their hungry mouths filled; to see
them al last .'faIl to" as Americans only
know bow. Heaven help the landlord!
Beefsteak, chicken, omelette, mutton
chops, biscuit and coffee at one fell
swoop. Walters, it is to be hoped, have
not been kept breakfastless since early
daylight, looking on calm, but disgust
ed. Now, their appetites appeased,
that respectable family yonder begin to
notice that Mr. and Mrs. Fitznooks, and
Miss Seraphene Fitznooks opposite, who
are aiistocratically delicate in their ap-
petites, are shock d beyond the power
of expr, ssion. They begin, as they
wipe their satisfied lips with their table
napkins, and contemplate Miss Fitz-
nooks' snowy breakfast robe, TO bethink
them of their dusty travelling drersses; as
if-foolish creatures-they were not in
Infinitely better taste, soiled as they are,
than her gaudy fnery at SO early an
hour-as if man was not a man "for
a. that''-aye, and woman, too--as if
there could be vulgarily without preten-
sion-as if the greatest vulgarity was
not ostentatious pretension.
In order to live justly. and be respect
ed, we must refrain from doing that we
blame in others.