New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-01-04

| lines Somebody's Elements but what they
we're clements of, poor Jem has never dis
| covered to this day. and Somebody Else's
| Young Author. piled in bulwarks on Jem's
study table. Patiently, aspiringly, bitterly,
| tearfully, despairingly, Jem attacked them.
| The lady chose her subjects She chose
her own subjects. "Outiine," and plans
and skeletons and suggestions were
| given to her. She made outlines and plans
and skeletons aud suggestions of her own.
| She wrote poetry. She tried blank verse
| anC the meters Of Horace. She wrote upon
| the beautit g of nature and the price OF coal.
| She tried her hand at romance and essays.
She effected abstracts OF sermons, and
judgments" of history, and topics of
| all varieties. The editor of the H'edneSday
| Esening Early Iisitor was very faithful
with her-very
| But one day Jem brought her compost
| ton on Icarus. Poor Jem had cried all
night and studied all day, upset three ink
| bottles and spoiled one dress; the bulwark
Of dictionaries and elements danced before
her dizzy eyes in hopeless mass OF hor-
| ror-and this was the composition on
! Icarus:
. Gg>KSe
B Icarus was the son of 0ndalus0 sShey
| fed from Minos. Icarus made winss Of
2 wax which melted. He fell into the Mid
z summer Nights Dream, and the lovely and
| accomplished Una carried him and her
| father, Anchises, upon her shoulders
! through the siege of Troy.
I Tie editor of the Wednesday, Evening
4 Early Visitor read this. and there was ID
pause.
Il think" said the editor of e9e E1ednes-
! day Erening Early Fisitor, then, that we
I will not meet again next week. l think
| that it may be as well, Miss Jasper, for you
to surrender the effort to master the art Of
| composition"
Poor little Jaspero surrendered" heartily.
| The principal, not at all patiently, informed
! her she was grieved to feel, but feel she
did that 1t would not be best for her to pur-
sue her studies beyond the close of the term
that perhaps retired Western Life would
Z be more calculated to improve her mind
and that she had written to her father to
that effect At that, Jem's heart broke.
what is your father?' asked some SYM
pathic girls ina little crowd about her.
p Furniture sobbed Jem. ''And poor, al
most-and I've cost him sc much-and
there's boy yet to come after me-and it
seems as if couldn't bo-bear it to 60 home
fu--foO!'
Jem did not wait for the end of 0ne Germ
SO they tell me, nor the departure of the
letter. She burned her compositions. tip
& ped over the bulwark of elements, packed
her trunks and went home. Her father was
making a coffin, when she walked, dusty
and wretched from her long journey, into
the shop.
"What did you come home for!" said So
because I'm a Ounce" said she.
"Have you told your mother SAID he
. EYES," said she.
? ..What did she say" asked 9hd gurnituGe
dealer after a silence.
CTS no matter, sir, if you please" said
/ the poor little Ounce, after another. For her
mother was sickly woman, not a very
happy one, and sol4etimes, to tell the truth,
a cross one. She was mortified and sur
prised, and Jem was mortified and tired,
and whatever welcome home she had had
in the house, suspect she found that il, the
store an improvement.
"Well, WE'LL said the father Gazing up
D his hammer again; "neyer lDino. just run
and get me those nails on the iow shelf,
will you! and never mind"
But he said to himself. $50 my poor little
girl is stupid, is she? III see if | can't make
one place for her where she'll forget it,
So it happened that Jem after she left
off writing compositions, used to run in
and out of the shop SO much. In conse
quence, two things came about She did
indeed nearly forget the composition on
Icarus. And there will be arozher ehaptee
full of her;
Fart IL
9Jem a4as sem "a Cb;essD5rgs .sssesss,S sgs
chair ~
What
ca declining chair Saeagts aeS. See Z
did. You bet. Jenl hao sens "a Chicago
for declining chair.
Poppet climbed to the cop OF sac Magee
stove 1.-THE fire happened sortunatele to be
low. and sat there triumphant goppet's
mother was resting on the mendii,g Dos &ese
and she sat there, amazed.
If Jem had been boy, she mighS have
stripped the city of Chicago of its stock Of
declining chairs" and neither Poppet nor
his mother nor the world at large would
have given a second thought to it. But she
wasn't. And Poppet and his mother and
the world at large have given several
thoughts to it before now. Indeed, they
have given so many thoughts to it that Jem
has got into the newspapers. But that is
no reason why she should not get into the
Young Folks that | can see for. liz the first
place, the people who read the Young Folks
do not, think may venture to affirm, al
ways read the newspapers; and, in the next
place, l have collected some particulars
about Jem with which neither the news
papers nor the Young Folks are acquainted.
1t was about an hour before Poppet came
home to his mother, that Jem had taken the
sign down, and locked herself into the store
to cry over it. She laid the heavy board
across a barrel, and tearfully drew her
fingers through the gild shade OF che mas
sive letters till their shine weSs eSs Sesose
her blinded eyes and-s
II. eAsPEHs y
Furniture Ua,sSeeeG
were into sudden mourning 40 al.eesss ~ 70:
own bombazine dress.
She had taken the sign Gown IN a He Of
impatient grief almost like SeXation. IL
seemed to her as il there were kind of
positive personal wickedness in that sign.
To hold up its bare face to the world just
the same as ever, and persist that H. Jasper
kept furniture wareroOms, when-O, poor
father poor father And there the bold
faced sign was drenchcS SSA sGgi5en G'a a
food of tears.
1t was just week thae affirming zines lie
died The funeral was over, the muddy
ground was stamped over the last piece of Z
furniture that II. Jasper would ever own, |
the house was swept, the sick room aired
and dreadfully fresh. Relations in light |
had gone to their own happy |
homes, her mother had taken to the mend |
ing basket and untold accumulated stock |
ings, and Poppet had played his first game |
of marbles-half frightened to death, too, |
because he laughed in the course of i'll
with an Irish boy in the street.
Nobody but Jem had come to the store. |
n Nobody, not evGa Jem, know what was to |
become of the store. Nobody, least of all |
Jem, knew what was to become of herself. |
What becomes of me becomes of us ALL" |
she said to herself-and she said it, must |
own. at the funeral. 'Tm father now"
1t did not seem to her that she had had |
any time to cry, till she locked herself in |
with that sign; the funeral and the rela-
tons in light mourning and Poppet and her
mother had kept her SO busy So for while |
she sat and cried on the sign.
Nobody but Jem knew what comfort she |
and her father had taken in the shop be-
hind that false persistiDp sirn How che