The weekly union record. [volume] (Oroville, Calif.) 1864-1866, 1865-12-16
Mr. Smith "A Moral Tale.

Orpheus c. Kerr is contributing to
the New York Saturday Press a series
Of tales, in which the different peculiar
ities of some of our popular writers Of
fiction are pleasantly caricatured. Those
familiar with our best magazine litera-
ture will have no difficulty in recogniz-
ing the writer; whose powerful but re
pulsive pictures are burlesqued in the
following, entitled: "Mr. Smith-A
Moral Tale u
The first of April. You know the
day. A point of time, an unit Of twenty
four hours, with a night on both sides
of it, and the sun laid on top of it to
keep it in its place. You have undoubt-
edly passed the day in New England
at some day of your miserable life. You
have felt your coarse nature repulsed,
too, VIXEN some weary and desolate little
child has dreamily pinned a bit Of paper
to the hindermost verge of the garment
men call coat, and then called the
attention Of passers-by to your appear
ance. You have despisod that little,
weary, hollow eyed child for it. Beware
how you strike that child; for | tell you
that the child is the germ of the thing
they call man. The germ viii develop;
it will grow broadly and largely into the
full entity of manhood. In striking the
present child, you strike the future man.
Ponder this thought well. Let it tester
in your bosom.
John Smith sat at his table, in the
lowest depths Of dreamy coal mine,
and helped himself to some pork and
beans. | know not what there was way
down in the black recesses of the mans
hidden soul to make him want so much
pork and beans. look into my heart
to find an answer to the question, but
no answer comes. Providence does not
reveal all things to US. Is it not well
it should be so!
He was a hard, iron-lookiug, ada
mantine man. His eyes were growing
crucibles Of thought. You felt that he
saw you when he looked at you. His
nose was like a red gothic tower, built
amidst broken angles of sullied snow,
and his mouth was the color Of that
tower. His hair was Of that sort that
resists a comb. You have seen the same
sort on the heads of men of great
thought. 1t is the tangled bush in which
the goat Of thought loses itself.
John Smith hiccupped as he helped
himself to some more pork and beans.
He did not notice that the foot which he
had semi-consciously placed on the pale,
sickly child, was beginning to move.
But it did move, and there crawled from
under it the shape of a diseased dwarf
of wOmanhood. This timid, pallid thing
uplifted itself to its bleeding feet, and
nestled to the side of John Smith.
''Y'u hae been separated by unspeak-
ing space from dis humble leetle place
for some hours longer than dis bosom
could uncomplainingly indulge-y'u
have.''
The child meant to say, in its coarse,
brutal, unlettered way, that the man
had been absent too long.
John Smith helped himself to some
more pork and beans. He was man,
YOU know, and could never answer with
out deep thought. He took his knife
and wiped it thoughtfully upon her head,
and then shaved off a sickly yellow curl.
When he placed that curl on the same
plate with the pork and beans, its coils
seemed like those Of some golden snake.
'.Girletta," he said, with ring Of
iron in his tones, ''why is it that the
beasts never want to marry? God made
them as he made Us; yet they never
ask priests to make them slaves to each
other
The sickly little waif cringed closer
to the inscrutable great heart which
underlaid a soul Of eternal questioning.
She shuddered ike wounded dog, but
could not answer. An inward fever was
devouring her.