The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-12-24

But the undertaker's skeleton for the
present.
There was never anybody prettier than
Nanny Pallfry. Indeed, it would be
hard 10 find in any woman's eye a more
enchanting light than that which lay in
Nannette's. Her voice, like the poets
western wind, was sweet and low. She
was az lovely and natural as a summer
wild flower, and 80 good that sin in her
was no evil.
Mr.. Theologian, you would interrupt
me.
Twill explain If she had been more
worldly wise, cautious instead of loving,
artful instead of sincere, in short any
thing but the very angel she was, Nan
nette's life would have seemed purer in
the worlds eyes, but not in Gods. /
know that.
Nannette's history is an old story,
told every day. For shame, man that
it is told every day. She lived and
loved, and trusted, and that is all OF it,
or nearly.
One December night she came in the
snow to her fathers door, and he turned
her away-Nannette, the only thing in
Gods world he loved with human love.
She did rot weep, she did not even muir
muir; she only pressed the hand of a
child who walked YEARLY beside her, and
passed on.
Her life from that time was so full of
suffering. vet so womanly and true, that
the angels might sit and listen to mar
ration of it with delight. Nannette went
far away from the city, and in n little
town by the sedgy sea-shore taught her
boy to pray.
Year after year went by.
The world went on like great wheel;
men and women and children dropped
off like flies, and Jedd Pallfry's hammer
was busy. Now while shrouds were be-
ing made. and collins vanished, and the
old world was turning on its axis, Nan
nette died.
The night of her death, just as old
Jedd was fitting the lining to an infants
coffin, Q grave grew up at his feet-a
willow and rose-bush, and he heard
the singing of birds He knew what it
meant. He knew that somewhere-he
could not tell where-there was another
mound Just like the one beside him. o.
how blithely the little birds sang to jedi.
There was new heaven and a new
earth for somebody that night, and how
merrily the robins sang about it. All
this happened while the snowhakes were
running nimbly over the housetops like
little white mice.
Every Christmas Eve, at the same
hour, Jedd sees this phantom mound,
with its signing willow tree, and its fairy
| 81 nd To ha
fragments of broken rainbow! And ut
night he has fearful dream. He fan
cies that four fever fiends with jaundiced
visage-Brain Fever, shouting delirious-
ly; Scarlet Fever, with red-hot eyes, and
their disgusting hands-hiss him on the
mound, till poor Jedd is near going mad
with agony and fear.
Nannette's child was adopted by fish
erman's wife; very badly adopted; for
when poor Tom was not busy catching
fish, he was catching something else.
So, between boating and beating, the
child was not as happy as he might have
been with more of one and less of the
other, or a genteel sufficiency of both.
Having INDUCED in four years expert
ence in being whaled, he took it into his
head to have hand in the business him
self. "To be or not to be" beaten any
more was his decision; 80 one fine morn
ing, without as much as the cognizance
of his beloved mother Amphitrite, he
placed his name in the books of "the
good ship" Maria Theresa, and sailed out
port with a light heart, one suit of
clothes, and prospect of hard work,
which is all the "rig out" true sailor
needs, Heaven bless him
But Tom was too delicately made for
whaling voyage, and after wasting three
years of the golden part OF his life, he
found himself in our great city one night,
without money, or friends, or place to
die in. He wandered from street to
street, so charmed with the mad wran-
Cling of sleigh bells-a new music to
him-and so dazzled by the shop win
dows that I've forgot his hunger and the
web of difficulties which Time and Fate,
busy monsters, were weaving for him.
But hunger under such circumstances,
like renewed note, only spares one for
little while. 1t came back to him with
interest, his hunger, and he grew dis
consulate.
The city, with all its strange newness,
was forgotten in turn. The snow chilled
him, and the happy children buying
toys in the grand shops, and the merry
sleighs darting the street like swallows,
gave him all acute sense of loneliness.
There were no mothers and sisters to
put gay presents in his stockings. In
deed, if there had been, they might have
bought the stocking, too, for never a one
had Tom on those cold little feet.
Tom looked in Maillard's window at
the rare pastry and CONNECTIONS, and his
hunger grew maddening. He turned
from the heaped delicacies, fearing that
he might be tempted to thrust his arm
through the thick plate-glass and help
himself. He turned away in CASTRO
nomic agony, did Tomtit, and hearing
the children say "Merry Christmas I"
wondered what it was and where it could
be
Poor Tom, have been looking for it
these five years
Nantuck passed rapidly up Broadway,
and then, to avoid the needless throng,
crossed over to the western part of the
town. Fate led him, for it deigns even
to shape the lives of such estrays as
Tomtit.
Once he paused at a bakers door, and