The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1877-03-08

Turn into an angel and die 1"
Then laughed good deal at her nonsense,
But she wouldn't stop crying-not she
Till suddenly hit OH an idea
That put her in quite great glee
For I whispered: al can't be an angel;
My character, dear, dosen't suit
Don't you see, Tn so awful a vixen
That the goose-wings refuse TO take root ~
t'-EDGAR FAwCEIT, In Christian Union.
THEY tell of little boy in Connecticut
who watched with envious eyes his COM
rades slide down hill, while ne, having
no sled, was compelled to take up with
an old chair or a barrel stave. His
foster mother finally told him to pray for
one. He took his mothers advice and
one evening prayed as follows "Now
lay me down to, sleep, want sled;
pray the Lord my soul to keep, want a
cutter" The grandfather of the little
fellow was informed of the prayer, and
was so pleased that he bought sled,
and few mornings after it was left by
his bed, so that he could see it as soon
as he awoke. AS his eyes first rested
upon. it the good lady behind the door
was both surprised and shocked to hear
him say, Well, now, where in thunder
did that come fromY' sCTE
BILL JENKINs.-"Yes," said the old
man, "yes, he was the worst boy ever
saw, as tar as / could tell. His name was
jenkins, and. he lived down at Cut and
Come Corners, with an old woman that
he called his granny. l--.,...... D..
~ don't suppose the boy had any
education to boast of, or, in fact, any at
all; and as to his granny, it was folks
opinion that she didn't come quite
honest by her chicken bones. 1t stands
to reason. She never kept chickens, but
you might always see chicken bones and
feathers round about tue dirty puddles
in front of her house.
Bad that amt the word. That boy
was the terror of the neighborhood. A
soft-spoken boy he was, too. You
wouldn't a believed he was so full of
the wicked one. He'd come and bring
you penny he found at your front door,
and carry off something from the kitchen
worth dollar. ..-l. ..is. ..s.....
"They tried to git him into the school
that red school 'us as you see under
the big elm, wonderland they got him
there; but he carried on so that the
teacher begged the committee to take
him out again, cause he spilled the other
"Twa'n't no use trying to punish him
if you did, he'd girdle your trees, dig up
your fruit-bushes, and hamstring your
cattle. People did say he beat his old
granny, but don't think that's true,
for she was strong enough to master him,
any way.
"There was only one person that had
any pity for him, and that was little
Nanny Skye, the minister's daughter.
"When you asked her why she always
spoke 80 kind to him, she only said she
pitied him because he was 30 wicked!
Did you ever hear of such thing? But
there, Nanny Skye wasn't any of your
common sort. Ifangels ever walked the
earth, and Pm thinkin' they do some
times, that Nanny was one. II ever
eyes looked like the blue of heaven, and
hair like the gold of the sunshine, hers
did. Think no livin' creeter that ever
saw, was her equal in beauty.
els she still handsome I? Well, I ex-
pect so, sir. What there is of the mortal
frame is dust to-day, under the ground in
the churchyard, which you can see from
here; but 1 expect she's more beautiful
in the better country than she was here.
"She died the day she was eighteen,
sir, and there was mourning lar and
wide. And he who was to have carried
her to his own home just month from
that day, lives here still, middle-aged,
solitary man. And if you 90 to her
grave of Sunday morning, you'll find
flowers there, though she has laid in that
dust nigh on to thirty years. Oh, yes,
he's old now, and he talks of her. and
talks of meeting her, as if he'd parted
from her but yesterday.
However, about the boy-Bill Jen-
kins was his name-and he would q
been fifteen or 80 the day he stoned an
old man on the road. A poor vagrant,
sir, with gray hairs, as was took dizzy,
and Bill thought he was drunk, and
cut him in the head, and laughed at him
and Knocked him. -,
We'll, that night, when he went home,
his granny takes him TO one side.
90 I've got sick man here, she said,
"a poor sick man that some wicked |
wretch has been and stoned-as if he
hadn't had sufferin' enough before ? and
then she burst out a-cryin,' which |
frightened Bill, as we'll it might, seeing
she'd never shed tear before to his
knowing.
The poor man was asleep, and when
no saw the head all bandaged up, Bill
felt ashamed, for the creeter seemed all |
but dying. Then his granny wrung her
hands.
"Pll have to tell it, Bill, something
makes me tell it. that there man ia NV
boy, my son, the only son l ever had, and
oh, how loved him! Yes, yes, and that
there man is your father, your poor I'M
fortunate father, who'd better never
have been born, though dear boy he
was till he got a-going in bad company.
And Bill, that there man with the
gray head, and sunk eyes, and withered
body, amt but thirty five years old, for
his life's been a-wasting away in prison
these fifteen years, ever since you were
born. That's as true as Gospel, and
you're going on in his ways as fast as
ever you can and knowed by what he
said, as it was your hands, the hands OF
his own child, as threw the stones at his
poor head. 0 Bill, will you come to the
gallowsH They jest saved his neck, and
now he's only come home to de-
swell, that boy never spoke word,
but he turned as white as sheet. Then
he skunk out of the cottage, and kept
away for two whole days. Mebby he was
Of his sins. The third day, he
come back, humble-like, and he knelt
down by his father and begged him to
orgive him.
STh.r h. wa,t to M;s. N.