The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1876-06-28
PAUL SMITHS WAIF.

Paul Smith was a poor old man.
He had back room in the top of
noisy lodging house, where he slept
nights and munched his meals of bread
and cheese--or Bologna sausage when
he could afford it--and from whence
he crept, as harmless and unnoticed as
a fly, down the corner of a dingy
street, to the little music shop of Carl
Brettman, German settler.
There he tinkered all day on broken
yiolins and other musical instruments,
never absenting himself for a moment,
save on Saturday afternoon, when he
went to the house of small trades.
man to teach the piano to three or
four very stupid girls. Sundays he
curled up in his den, and amused him
self, nobody knew how, until Monday
morning.
There are a few certainties. He
never went to church, but he picked
ragged children from the pavement
when they fell near him, and gave
them half.pennies when he had any ;
shared his dinner often with a NANCY,
dirty cur, who acted as sort Of es-
cape-valve for the illtemper of half
the men and women in the street, and
he reused Pat Ryan from his midnight
snooze in the gutter many cold night
and literally carried him home to
Norah and the children.
AS for his honesty, n neighbor re-
marked, "If he found five shillings in
the street, he'd wear out ten shillings
worth of strength and shoe. leather to
find the owner"
One cold night Paul was returning
from his work, with a loaf of bread
under one arm and violin under the
other, when at the street door be stun
bled and nearly fell over small OBJ
ject crouched on the step.
"Bless us what's this?" cried Paul,
striving to regain his equilibrium.
"Only me, sir!" and the small OBJ
ject stood up, and became very pale,
thin and ragged child.
"Are you hurt, little girl 2"
"No, SIR"
"What are you doing out here in
the cold?"
Nothing"
"Why don't you go home?" :.
81 amt got any"
Dear mel Where's your mother p
"In heaven W
AT this Paul was dumfounded, and
seeing that great tears were stealing
down the child's wan face, he thrust
the violin under the arm which held
the bread, and putting the other
around the tiny figure, he said:
"Oh I've got home "a real Jolly
place Come up and see |"
And this is the way old Paul came
to have a neat little housekeeper, and
to be buying gowns and shoes ont OF
his poor salary.
The winter of 1866 came in like a
lion, as many poor wretch we'll re-
members, and with the first blast came
PauPs enemy. He turned one night
sad face from his warm corner in
Brettman's shop among the violins,
and hobbled up the cold street, feeling
the approach of the old rheumatic
pains, and wondering what would be.
come of his poor little Camilla.
His excitement carried him up to
his last flight of stairs, and hearing
Camilla's voice, he paused to rest and
to listen. She was singing in that
sweet and expressive manner which
made her voice seem to him the sweet.
est and purest he had ever heard. At
the end of the stauza she took breath,
and anotheE voice said, "Child, you
astonish me. Either / am poor
judge of music or else your voice is
the finest | ever heard. You are
right in preferring it to anything else" F"
An electric thrill shot through old
Pauls frame and quickened his blood
to a rapidity that quite carried away
his rheumatic pains, and in q twink
ling he was up the stairs and in his
little attic.
He was terrified at the sound of a
mans voice. but the sight Of hand
some and polished gentleman, with
diamond studs in his snowy linen, a
heavy ring upon his dainty white
hand, unquestionable broadcloth upon
his back, in close conversation with
his Camilla, whose wondrous beauty
had of late startled even his dull per.
ception, was more than Paul could
bear.
He was very small man-had been
in his youth-and now that Times