The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1863-05-07
Old Roger

4 ~
per, as hugging his tattered garments around
him, he tottered along the street.
1t was at the close of a rude winters day.
The evening dusk had fallen, and a few flakes
of snow fluttered over the city. AS old Ro-
ger picked his way carefully across the icy
slabs, a gay young lamplighter passed on his
evening rounds, set his ladder against a post
near by, mounted smartly, and touched with
a match the eager jet of gas, which cast a
yellow radiance all around the old mans feet.
"Ha!" said Roger, with the very ghost of
a laugh fitting airily from his numb, cold
lips, 'that's a good omen. Light, light, gold
en- light, too, all over my poor old ragged
shoes. So in my life l have been cropping,
though Heaven knows l capered as gaily as
any schoolboy once, and walked as proudly
as any youth afterwards-till now the cold
winter night is setting in, and it's all power
full dark before me-so dark, and chill, and
threatening. But there will come a CLEAN
soon, just like this, witch brightens all around
and-and-and-'
The old man was mumbling again, with a
sort of childish, dreary glee, when, setting
his foot incautiously npon a piece of ice, he
slipped and fell helpless upon the frozen
ground. I7'# ~
"Hillo, old man-your hurt Pr cried a mer-
ry school-boy. -- E2.
'EHe's down there looking after a pin, laugh
ed another, sliding by with a sled at his heels.
The boys passed on, and the old man strug-
gled to regain his feet. But he was feeble
and rheumatic, and the fall had well nigh sha-
ken the life out of him. When he came a lit
tie to himself, he observed that a kind gentle
man was assisting him with cheering words.
'No, | am notmuch damaged, =" said Roger
gratefully. ''Thank you, sir; it would
have been much better if had broken my
neck. | ant ofmuch account in the world
nobody would ever miss old Roger Johnson
out of it."
''Have you got far to goT' asked the stran-
ger.
'ENot far tonight, thank heaven. l live or
rather stay right round the corner here, third
door up the alley"
'"Vell, good night to you. Mind and keep
your legs under you," cried the stranger.
He passed on, and the old man, dragged
his sinking limbs into a provision store on the
corner, purchased a loaf of bread with the bit
of silver to " hich he had clungtightly all the
while, then creeping with unsteady steps into
the alley, entered a dark, dilapidated door
with his supper under his arm.
AS he was stumbling up a dismal old stair
case, a sharp feminine voice called out to him
from the floor of the first landing:
'.Is that you Johnson ?'
81 suppose it is, though / sometimes more
than half suspect that it is somebody else, re
piled the old man. a5 j
"Why didn't you speak? I'd opened the
door so you could see" cried the other.
''Where does that light come from p asked
Roger. 'sDo YOU indulge in lamplight before
II IL ba1lIx- Ja1L@ Mrc Stnpa P's lf -#
'Come in here and you shall see. There,
you didn'texpect such a fire as that, did you
Johnson
''Bless you woman, that I didn't. You are
as warm as toast here. How jolly it is to
see a stove all of a glow like that. Where
did your coal come from ?'
90" said Mrs. Stone, Sydney brought me
three dollars to-day; and the children were
a shivering and chattering over the little fire.
so | took it into my head that these three dol
lars should go towards making us warm once,
if we never get warm again in our lives. So
what did, do but go and order a quarter of a
ton of Goa, and the children have been as mer-
ry as crickets ever since. They are quite con-
tent to go without their supper, so there's a
good fire to cuddle down by. Come in it's a
free warm, Johnson. As long as the coal
lasts, | want everybody to enjoy it that can.
You shall set with us this evening-your room
is awful dreary, Johnson"
The frozen tears thawed in the old mans
eyes, but his voice was SO choked that he
could not express his thanks. Seating him
self in a rickety old chair, he warmed his cold
shins, and rubbing his shriveled hands over a
stove, patting the childretfs heads, and ended
by dividing the larger portion ofhis loaf among
them, reserving but a scanty fragment for
himself, ,.l q
Mrs. Stone demonstrated against his gener-
osity. But the children seized upon the food
so eagerly that the grateful old man declared,
with ~tearsrunning down his cheeks, that it did
him more good to see them eat than it would
to sit down to a most bountiful feast.
The meagre meal was soon concluded, when
heavy footsteps were heard on the stairs. The
poor woman's heart ceased to beat. She turn
ed so pale that the old man observed her
change of c~ountenance even in that dim light.
sis it father ?' whispered the children.
At that moment an angry voice demanded
with an oath why she did not hold the light.
s'Hush !" said Mrs. Stone to the covering
little ones. $685.
She opened the door, and presently a shah
by, frost-bitten, middl3-aged man, came blus-
tering into the room. 1t was the woman's
husband who always, when he had money to
spend, deserted his family for the gr~og-shop,
and who returned to them for shelter.
He was a brutal, %tyrannical man, though
be had not always been so, in SCOTLAND his
appearance was the signal for general trouble
and fear. 1t made poor old Roger Johnson's
heart burn in his bosom to hear Jacob Stone
demand money of his wife, and curse her be-
cause she had that day spent all their eldest
u0-sC 49, e.. r@J IL ~ IL ..~faz1~
ing father snatched from the hands of a sickly
child the crust that had been given it to gnaw.
the old man spoke out in his Indignation
This led to a sharp quarrel, and he was driv-
en- with oaths from the room. Jacob slapped
the door after him, and the feeble lodger erept
darkling up to his cold windy attic.
He sighed as he sat there in the gloom on
the uninviting bed. The comfort he had just
tasted made the present desolation more BIT
ter by its contrast. The old man huddled to-
gether, with the tattered bed-covering wrap
ped around him. and sobbed like a little
child. 1t seemed the darkest of all the dark
hours he had yet known. Always, until now,
he had some ray Of hope when the gloom was
thickest, but in the present anguish nothing
was left him but to die.
Once the old man started up and cursed
himself for food. He was half-famished in a
wintry garnet, and the reflection that he had
given away to the greedy ones Of Jacob Stone
nearly the whole Of his last Loaf, fired him
with indignation at his own folly.
4 deserve to starye,' he muttered. 'FFhe
world is all selfshness, and he who gives any
thing is a dull dolt let him suffer! But, o,
this hunger and cold! Have l deserved so
much p
There were others well fed and warmed
that night. Roger thought of them he saw
happy families, with smiling faces sitting
round their glowing hearths. Then he wept
again-not with envy or remorse. He thank
ed God there was comfort in the world, al
though his lot was to suffer. He thought of