Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1877-11-26

along the days; she thought how the
proud young spirit, stung with remorse
and shame, would be likely to fash up
into fierce recklessness or settle down
into sulIen defiance. The lady's heart,
boxing on her own son. ached and yearn-
ed over this other mothers.
She rose up, she took her little boy IN
her arms and set him on his fathers
knee. "Luther," she said, IL will not
argue or reason with you, for you will
get the best of me there but | plead
for this boy in the name of your own,
take him back give him one more trial,
for the sake of this r. and she placed
her hands on the child's head.
The child looked up with his sweet |
face fall of bewilderment. Something !
in the tender, solemn face of his mother |
seemed to impress him. He reached out
his fat, dimpled hands to his father, and
cried in his pretty, child voice, "rake
him back, papa, take him back"
MIR. Randolph was moved. He bent
down swiftly and kissed the small speak
er, and fancied himself guilty of great
unmanly weakness when he said. 80,
Mary, you women, with your children,
are enough to turn mans brain. It's
against my lifelong principles to do
what you ask"
But after all the speech conceded much
more than it denied, and Mrs. Randolph
knew that if Tom was not gone beyond
recall he might have another chance
with his master.
, Three days had passed, and the year
had stepped softly from November into
winter, and the last month opened with
smiles as radiant as those which kindle
the face of June, with winds balmy as
r Mays and with no sign or whisper of
: the long path of storm and darkness
. through which the road lay toward the
spring, just as some lives lie in sweet
warmth and security on the borderland
of awful experience of sorrow and pain
| and loss, through which their feet must
$ walk into the eternal "rest" beyond.
And one morning of this Sunshine
!. out of season" youth somewhere about
\ in his seventeenth year, might have been
: seen making his way slowly along one
t of the principal thoroughfares of the city
y If you had looked in his face yor
4 would have found it bright, intelligen
8 one, with eyes that held usually plenty
It of fire and spirit in them, but now car
W ried some gloom, or sadness or both. s
,e utz sUep, SLOW anu uespondenG, 8
d did the slender boy figure, with the idl
1T hands listlessly in the pockets, for wan
&c of some better employment.
Now, Tom Haynes" buzzed the bu
a sy brain of this youth, you're done 70
in this city, and the sooner you clear ou
and go off to sea, the better for you. Th
= best thing you can do is to ship as
. common deck hand, for good long voy
age round the world. You'll have
b chance to see something of the worl
>. before you get back, and, perhaps you
g get into good berth and be captai
be some day. It'll be hard enough at frs
= and you must make up your mind
plenty of knocks but it will be bette
\ than loa6ng around the city, with yor
ha hands in your pockets and your last do
&c lar going. There's no chance for yc
&C here, with your character gone and yol
!. situation lost, and you've nobody
:. thank but yourself, as the old fello
~ told you when he sent you off. All yo'
fine visions and pretty dreams of ma
,ro ing money and setting up the folks
:, home are gone now.
of ..Poor mother, and little Ruth !'' A
~ there was twinge then, that made t
boy start and shrink as one might at t
- touch of coal fire he knew the poo
g broken down mother, the bright lit
sister, just three years his junior, b
nu set all their hopes and pride on hin
~ that he was their one hope and tru
IL and when they should come to hear t
a. truth, that he was discharged and d
graced, and had run off to sea, th
would never hold up their heads again
sba All, if he could 60 back to the day
!. which he left them. Then the te;
;na sprang up into his eyes he was thir
!, - ing of their last words--his mothe
h.t and little Ruth's. There was only 9
thought that was harder than that, a
lnb this was going back and looking il
- their faces and telling them the tru
che And so reasoning after the fearful ISL
nlv ic of evil" the one wrong always invo
h. ing another. he told himself, in desp
ect and desperation, that there was no h
ION for it; he must .'run off now and 60
sea-"
lent And he who had been so weak to
sist temptations of the land, would
lam pose himself to those increased hui
q a red-fold, on board the ship, among Goa
the and brutal companions, amid the !;
her of all moral restraint and infue
the which long sea voyage necessarily
. its wolves.