Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-12-29

4 HOUSE, OllEh ste uAlll Ol1 AlAC 6AlGCto
always In bad company, always dirty
and ragged; and sometimes with horri'
bic language on the young lips his
mother kissed so fondly. The grave O.
father and mother is sad enough, bul
the grave of that poor boys hopeful
manhood is sadder still-calling up Il
God so piteOusly it seems it must bt
heard.
Just across the street there is a neat
| little cottage, with two rooms and two
| inmates-a widowed, invalid mother
and her pretty, girlish daughter, whose
only knowledge of the world was learned
| in the narrow limits of that humble
home. The girl sews for a living, and
/ is bright and CHEEKY as a bird; while hel
mother thinks she is an angel. She has
a lover, too, or thinks she has--tall and
handsome, with a fair mustache that
hides the cruel smile of the bad, sensual
mouth. They take long walks at night,
| for his fashionable friends must not see
him with a sewing-girI on his arm; he
| tells her he has no other leisure. They
stand in the vine-shadows on the porch,
her foolish, trembling little hands in his;
her sweet lips turned upward for his fair,
cruel iips to kiss. If she only knew he
was nothing but a grave-diggeri that
after awhile she would stand alone in
the world, beside y&wning pit, dug by
| that lovers hands, and in it, buried deep
and forever, her maiden purity and in
nocence, with her mothers heart thrown
in, bruised, bleeding and broken!
At the corner there is a fair building
lit up with gas, and everything so
splendid, one is fooled into believing it
was made thus beautiful for some holy
purpose. 1t is only a drinking saloon,
and the poor, trembling, bloated wretch
who hands back his empty glass to be
refilled, is only a husband and father,
totterng to the grave which that ruddy,
smiling man behind the counter is dig
ging for him.
A little girl sometimes follows the poor
wretch into that fair, wicked place. How
frightfully the gaslight reveals the tat
tered garments and the naked feet.
"What will you have, my little girl?n
says the genial man, with his ever
ready smile.
"Only father, sirr'
"Oh, there he is; take him and well
come. Pm going to close up nOw.n
And close up he does, Just as the drunken
man reels and falls on the pavement a
helpless mass. The child takes her
thread-bare shawl from her almost
naked shoulders, and wrapping it about
the PROSTATE form, goes back through
the pitiless night to her wretched home
and its miserable inmates. The ruddy
man goes to his comfortable bed and
sleeps snugly. He can afford it, for he
is getting rich. So many graves to dig
Living graves for the mothers, wives
and daughters of the men whom he
puts under the mould. He digs such
Immense graves-he fills them so rap
idly, that one could almost believe the
black plague was sweeping over this de-
voted land, which God has made so fair
and man has so befOuled.
l stood by the bedside of q stricken
woman, rich and proud, and once very
beautiful. Her child kneIt and sobbed,
"Save my mother! she will die and
where can / find another?n The woman
moaned, "Give me opium; / am racked
with pain; / must have it" ayes, y
said the physician, gravely, 'she must
have il. | have tested her case, but she
has gone to far with the habit. She can
not live long with it-she cannot live at
all without it."
Another grave-digger, and this time
li1E suit Willie Adll6 Va q hOllaAAs Ntu
knows who or what had placed the
deadly temptation before her. We only
know her fair hands were not strong
enough to put it away. 1t was not my
province to condemn her. did not,
but shall never forget the dispairing
cry of that young soul whom she had
gotten from God: "My mother will
die, and where can I get another?u All,
where, indeed!
/ was passing by a cemetery, and en-
tered, attracted by loud voices, mingled
with low tones of earnest entreaty. A
rough man stood by an open grave, with
a shovel in his hand. A slender girl,
half child, half woman, with wild eyes,
and features haggard with want and
grief, chung to his arm with frantic en-
ergy. "Walt-waitv she cried, ''iust
one moment. Oh, surely, some one will
come to say one pTaye- over her. They
they look like it. l have hidden in
damp holes and corners as they passed,
that my rags might not touch themW
"What was the dead one to you, little
gal?"
"She was my mother, and l loved
her, if she was lost and wicked
lut AuElb vi LlAG l4N-lulltGA
sod, and wrung her hands with an agony
pitiiul to see. "My poor, poor darling"
she mourned, sit might have been so
different if anybody had ever tried to
save your
Just then a faded-looking woman,
nervous and shaky with last nights
touched the child on the
shoulder "Cover her up,n she said,
v,,a1-.,,ur 1rrrr-h lot Lot,
the desOlation of tie scene; "cOver her
up; they are all so much better than
Christ that not one of them will comet
The girl rose up with a weary, hope
less lock, that darkened and hardened
as the clods ratified on the rough pine
coffin. When the grave was heaped up,
she stopped and Kissed it. "Good-bye,
mother she said; "lOst and despised in
this world, and now gone down to burn
ing hell. If ! ever see you again | must
follow in your footsteps With sud
den wild impulse she sprang to her feet,
and stretched her arms heavenward.
off" she said, "there be a good God, |
whose majesty is this day insulted by
his ministers, may He deal out to them
In their direst extremity the mercy
WI ich they have showed to me-" Fold |
ing her tattered shawl about her, she
moved rapidly away. If that young |
girls innocence was buried out of sight |
forever, who dug the grave? 1t is a |
fearful question, and must be answered, |
for the dear Christ said: Given as We |
did it to one of these little ones, ye did |
It unto me-"
Graves are waiting for us all, and who, |
Or what, dear reader, is digging yours
and mine. SALLIE ADA VANCE.
Lexington, Mississippi.