Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1868-05-29

merchant, deep in the income list OF the news
PAPER, an old lady with two bandboxes, man
in the corner with his hat pulled over his
eyes.
Tommy opened the door, peeped in, hesi-
tated, looked into another ear, came back,
gave his little fiddle a shove on his shoulder,
and walked in.
H. little Tommy Tucker
Plays for his supper"
shouted a young exquisite lounging on the
vlstform in tan-colored coat and lavender kid
gloves.
50, kids, you're here. are you? Well,
I'd rather play for it than loaf for it, had, y
said Tommy, stoCIy.
The merchant shot a careless glance over
the top Of his paper, at the sound of this Pefit
dialogie, and the old lady smiled benignly !;
the man in the corner neither looked nor
smiled.
Nobody would have thought, to look at that
man in the corner, that he was at that very
moment deserting a wife and five children.
Yet that is precisely what he was doing.
\ villain? o, no, that is not the word.
4 brute? Not by any means. Weak, un-
fortunate. discouraged, and selfsh-as weak,
unfortunate and discouraged people are apt
TO be that was the amount Of it, His pan
orainas never paid him for the Use of his halls.
His travelling tin-type saloon had trundled
him into a sheriff-s hands His petroleum
speculations had crashed like a bubble. His
black and gold sign, J. Harmon, Photograph
er. had swung now for nearly year over the
dentists rooms, and he had had the patron
age Of precisely SIX old women and three ba-
hies lie had drifted to the theatre in the
evenings,-he did not care now to remember
how many times,-the fellows asked him, and
it made him forget his troubles; the next
morning his empty purse would cape at him,
and Annie's mouth would quiver. A man
must have his glass, too, on Sundays, and
-well-perhaps little oftener. He had not
always been fit to 60 to work after it; and
Annie's mouth would culver. 1t will be
seen at once that it was exceedingly hard on
man that his wife's mouth should quiver.
''Confound it, Why couldn't she scold, or
cry? These still women aggravate fellow
beyond reason"
Well. then. the children had been sick :
measles, whooping-cough, scarlatina, mumps,
he was sure he did not know what not ;
every one Of them, from the baby up. There
was medicine, and there were doctors bills,
and there was sitting up with them at night
their mother usually did that. Then she
must needs pale down herself like a poorly
finished photograph: all her color. and round
ness, and sparkle gone and ifever man liked
TO have a pretty wife about it was he. More
over she had a cough, and her shoulders had
g1own round, STOPPING so much over the
leavy baby, and her breath came short, and
she had way Of being tired Then she
never stirred out of the house-he found out
about that one day; she had no bonnet, and
her shawl had been cut up into blankets for
the crib. The children had stopped going to
school; they could not buy the new arith-
metic.'' their mother said half under hel
breath. Yesterday there was nothing fol
dinner but Johnny cake, not large one a
that Tomorrow the saloon rents were due
Annie talked about pawning one of the bur
eaus Annie had had great purple ring
under her eyes for six weeks.
lie would not bear the purple rings an
quivcring mouth any longer. He hated tn
sight of her, for the sightIstung him. III
hated the corn-cake and the untaught child
ren. He hated the whole dreary, dragging
needy home. The ruin oft dogged him lik
ghost, and he should be the ruin of it a
long as he stayed in it. Once fairly rid o
him, his scolding and drinking, his wastin,
and failing, Annie would send the childrel
to work, and find ways to live. She had en-
ergy and invention, plenty of it, in he
young, fresh days, before he came across he
life to drag her down. Perhaps he shou,
make golden fortune, and come back to he
some summer day with silk dress and ser
wants, and make it all up; in theory thi
was about what he expected to do. But
his i'll luck went wes+,Uor ri with him and til
silk dress never turned up, why, she woul
forget him, and be better off, and that woul
be the last Of it.
50 here he was, ticketed and started, fail
J! bosnd for Colorado, sitting with his ha
over his eyes, and thinking about it.
|" Hmm. Asleep" pronounced Tommy
WIN his keen glance into the cornel
"uess III wake him up"