Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-07-14
0Qortester Daily Spp.
THE LEATHER BAG.

and daughters knew knothing about it all
they had known he had money somewhere,
for when it was wanted it was forthcoming
but whatever they might conjecture, they Ger
tainly didn't know where he kept it, how he
kept it or how much he had. The little gray
man became quite ugly on any allusion to
these subjects. He had a morbid diseased
anxiety for the security of his money-sa
jealousy lest any one, saving himself should
see, touch, handle, or disburse single farthing
of it-that was far from conducive to domestic
felicity.
1t was an old satchel, a small one, in which,
when boy, he had carried his books to school.
When he walked across the country to be APP
prenticed-a walk of nearly twenty miles from
his fathers croft-he carried in the satchel the
bread and butter which his mothers anxiety
provided for his sustenance by the way. While
he was an apprentice he kept his Bible in it,
and the first pound-note he ever earned he
kept in the Bible.
As he advanced in life the "guid book"
fattened with his savings all in notes, between
its leaves, till it could hold no more of them,
and had 10 be laid aside by which time,
through use and want, and the association of
ideas, Andrew had come to prefer "bank or
bankers notes" to other forms Of currency.
He derived more pleasure from seeing the
notes stuff out the sides of that bag than the
ring of gold pieces against the walls of the
safest iron box could ever have given him.
For twenty years he watched the progress of
his fortunes in the stomach of the bag Time
was when he used to play with fortune, taking
the notes out, one by one, 'rumpling" them TO
make them bulk well, and putting them in till
the bag would swell as if it would Immediately
deliver itself of a competency; and after COM
placently contemplating it in this state for some
fImn bn would mt in folds CT,
over the mere embryo of an independence to
which they contracted TWAS the main pleas
ure of his to watch the bag, and many strug-
gle 1T had cost him to reconcile his duties to it
with those which, being by nature kindly
fellow, he could not but acknowledge were
owing to his family. He took pride in it he
would sit after work hours and smoke his pipe,
and look at it as if it were child, as it lay
Graded in the wooden chest; and then, in later
years, he would stroke its back and wink at
1.-THE old rogue-taking it into his conf
dence; but down with the lid with bang at
once at the first sound of football, let it be of
wife or daughter, coming toward him. At
the dream Of his life was realized, and the bag
that had been year by year becoming more
dropsical was ready to burst and Andrew de-
clared his intention to retire from business.
1t was natural, with Andrews pride in his
store, his anxiety for its safety increased till it
became, as | have said, a disease. At last,
Andrew, after much bad logic and q great
struggle with his better nature, made up his
mind that in some way his lockfast-pieces were
being tempered WITH and that out of the chest
and out Of the house the bag must go, and that
immediately and so he cast about for place
in which to conceal it.
And at the head of the garden, behind the
house, was an old stone wall, and on the top of
which-now he had nothing to do-he used to
sit and smoke his after-breakfast pipe. The
wall was full of old crannies, letter-box holes
all along the side of it, and looked just the sort
of wall that man would like to look upon who
had a bag Of money to hide. Before finishing
his pipe, he made up his mind as to the very
place to put it ina hole that turned to the
one side and widened into perfect little cham
Der, two feet below the top, and in the very
heart Of the masonry.
1t remained to put the bag in its place with
out being seen nor was Andrew long III find
ing an opportunity for doing SO. On Sunday
the great Mr.. Thumpanbawl-there was only
one church in the little village of A in
those days-and Andrew calculated that every
one who could would go to hear that power
full preacher" So when Sunday morning
came, Andrew had shocking headache. He
felt too poorly to go to church, yet was not too
unwell to look after himself; so when the hour
expressions ofhope and trust that he might be
better when they returned. Andrew chuckled
at the window and "saw them out OF sight"
Great was his excitement when the bell ceas-
ed yet he held to his plan, allowing twenty
minutes for the congregation fairly to assem-
BILE after which, opening the back-door care
fully, he stole with his treasure up the garden,
looking about him with the circumspecton Of
guilt, lest any one should see him. Having
hid the bag and torn himself away from it with
difficulty into the house, he lighted his pipe in
the front kitchen-as if wholly to disconnect
himself from recent transactions at the back of
the house-and sat in the ingle with the "guid
bulle" close at hand in case of surprise.
When his people returned from church he
wore an air of one coming round, and "verra
much better, am obleeged t'ye." AT the same
time, he had great difficulty in REFRESHING a
tendency to chucke over the success of his
plan. His efforts at maintaining the compos-
ure of Indifference and the air of an invalid
were as ridiculous as they were fatiguing, and
as the day advanced, proved new source Of
alarm to his wife and daughters, who were
startled by the novelty of his behavior. In the
evening he became fatigued with acting, and,
at the same time, extremely nervous, and de-
sirous to satisfy his senses of the safety of his
money; the more so, as he could invent no
reasonable pretence for going to the garden.
He tried to convince himself by arguments
that it was all right-and if it was all wrong,
how, at that time of night, could he mend it 7
Thus he see-sawed between fear and conf
dence till the hour came for worship, which he
conducted so incoherently as greatly to alarm
the family. AS it would happen, the
chapter that fell to be read that night was
the sixth of Matthew, in which the verse
occurs, clay not up for yourselves treasures
,,fh a,,I 1Nt1, -
and where thieves break through and steal"
Reviewing his sensations of that day, and re-
calling the many miserable days in past
years which his money had brought him, he
paused and groaned. He felt the wisdom of
the recommendation he returned on the
verse, and read it again slowly, while his
wife, with queer interrogative air looked up
at him from her book and over her specta-
Giles. He didn't like it, and had never felt SO
uncomfortable. The there's in the verse didn't
improve it, And then followed the words,
"For where your treasure is there will your
heart be alsop Could anything be more
true? Wasn't his heartI at this very moment
when he was on the point Of kneeling, to
make a prctence of prayer, out in the hole,
two feet from the top, and near the middle OF
the old stone dixie !? Oh could he only be
sure that his treasure was there also Before
bedtime, he was twice on the point of stating
the whole case to them, making clean breast
oft, and getting the bag in; but he couldn't
screw himself up to that point Weren't they
all anxiety about him and the illness of the
day and was he to tell them it was all shaml
lie couldn't do it. And by this time his old
feet were being washed by Kate in tub Of
hot water; and Molly was lowering with a
wooden spoon the temperature of a large bowl
of gruel--spiced, buttered and qualified with
whiskey which, according to his wifes reci-
pc, he was to drink Immediately he got in
amang the claes'
When he went to bed, he couldn't sleep
he could only think and his thoughts wan
dered back to the day when he won the heart
of his old partner Jessie-that proud day the
dnv Molly was horn and then the day Kate