The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1878-07-31
Ruth's Composition.
n shabby little house. in a shabby

In shabby little house, in shabby
tile street. I call it street simply out
of compliment 1t being in reality only
: an alley that had started out to be a
street and finding itself too narrow by
half had stopped at the end Of two blocks
and never goue any further-lived a
shabby old man, called by his neighbors
"Mr. Waste Paper" and by rude boys and
girls of the neighborhood "Old Miser''
= and "Queer Eyes"
He bought and sold waste paper, and
all the four rooms in his house-he was
the only one in the street that occupied a
whole house and was looked upon with
great respect on that account-in fact, I
think if he had only rented room Or
- two like the rest of the inhabitants he
would have been "Waste Paper Jonn,"
instead of "Mr. Waste Paper"-were
almost filled with it.
One, indeed, the largest, was filled to
the very ceiling, only a narrow pathway
being lett in the center like small val
ley between two steep mountains.
- A deep drift like snow lay upon the
floors Of the two other rooms, and hun
~.reds of books FROM which the covers
had departed forever, old magazines,
used, up ledgers, torn hand bills and cir
culars, were stacked along the walls, and
in the fourth room, where the old man
ate and slept, all the furniture, with the
of
saucepan, and tea-kettle; was made of
paper. Ottomans formed out Of news
papers laid neatly one upon the other, a
bed built of some twenty large bundles
OF coarse brown paper with an old ''Web-
ster's Unabridged" for pillow; a table
made Dy placing six big account books
on the floor, six more on the top of them,
and so on until enough had been used
All legless, of course, but serving Mr..
Waste Paper as we'll as though they had
any numper Of legs.
You never saw such a queer place in
your life, and never heard such continual
rustling and cracking as the furniture
kept up, and very likely you never met
such very odd old man."
One shoulder was little higher and
and he had one black eye and one blue
one. and when he was good natured he
looked at you with the blue one, and
when he is cross he looked at you with the
black one, and don't think there could
ever have been two more expressive eyes
- in the world-one could look so cross aud
the other so kind.
Well, nobody in Sam street--that is
what they called the ambitions alley,
after old Sam Junkman, who built the
first house there fifty years ago--knew
anything about Mr.. Waste Paper except
that he had lived IN the four roomed
house for the last ten years, and that the
only person he was at all friendly with was
Mrs. Dolf, the kid-glove cleaner, who
lived next door, and who boiled the water
for his tea on summer evenings, when he
had nc fire at home.
Mrs Dolfs children, Amos and Cherry
liked the old man very we'll, for he used
often to give them pretty pictures which
he cut from the picture papers which fell
in his possession, and, more rarely, a
penny or two; but the other Sam street
children called him ''old miser," because
he gave them nothing, and because they
heard their fathers and mothers say,
"Waste Paper has good sum of money
in some bank OF other, you may bet, for
he's been buying and selling for ten
years and never had days sickness,
and wearing the same old clothes, sum-
mer and winter, and not a chick or a
child, or dog, or cat to look after, and
never asking anybody to have drop OF
beer or pipe of 'baccy. He's a re la1
old miser, that's what he ISL
But the old man paid no attention tc
!: rude boys and girls. except to turn
us black eye on them once in while
when they became too annoying, but
passed his time when at home reading
something from his stock in trade, or
with eyes half closed in deep thought
about what no one but himself ever knew
when one bright, warm May day, he came
into his iving-ro from the
street, carrying a heavy bag on his
shoulder.
He placed the Dag upon a paper otto.
man, sat down on the paper bed beside
he paper table, wiped his face with a
handkerchief, and then opened the bag
and tumbled the contents out upon the
paper carpet. He had bought them thai
morning of a school teacher who lived al
the other end Of the town. four miles
away, and they consisted OF soiled copy
books, old grammars, biographies, arith.
metics, histories, readers, with as many
dogs ears as would have supplied severa
large dog families, old reports and Ole
compositions from the pile before him
he BEGAN to talk to himself, as people
who live lonely life are sometimes il
:he habit of doing. ''All these long years,
ne said, land have never found any
hing of value. No wills, no bank notes
10 trace Of my lost family-nothine
hat people in my business arr
always finding in stories," and as he sale
his his black eye fell upon a nam,
written in childs struggling hand OF
he back Of one Of the papers he had
Ruth Sands Norris and underneath
othe teachers writing g, ''Very good, in
I'd, for little girl Of ten"
The old man hastily united the ribbon
With trembling hands, and with strange
light breaking over his wrinkled face
the paper, turning his blue ey,
,pon it, began to read. And this is VIVA