The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1878-03-19

weeks work moving boxes and taking
orders for a grocery, but a &c Of periodt.
cal economy coming on at the store all
extra hands were discharged, and W.
with them.
The wall Of their room was deplorahle,
and they managed TO get paper enough
TO cover Il at an auction for half q dollar,
and put il on themselves. W found
himself 60 handy at the work, his eye for
matching being good and his hand quick
and steady, that the idea seized him TO
set up for q paper hanger. he hung
round paper and paint shops, and fol-
lowed customers out asking for work.
He found out what the regular paper
hangers charged, and by putting his price
very low, managed To get q job. 1t both.
cred and bothered him, and made his
neck ache till he was hardly able to
sleep but there was q chance Of getting
into business again, and he was willing
to take rheumatics along with it He
found be needed a board To spread the
paper on, and went to q workman and
borrowed the necessary implements, leay-
ing his hat in exchange and wearing q
paper cap round the corner to his work.
The Job was 4 success; he tookihome his
money and would not have called the
King his cousin.
He was awfully puzzled, however, in
his new trade one day when a lady sent
for him and wanted a dado put round
her rooms. W-had gone out ofpolite
society before the art fever came on, and
was ignorant OF the terms Of art decora-
ton. He agreed to do the work, and
while he was buying paper, said to the
paper.hanger conidentiAlly, "Tm think
Ing Of having a dado round this room.
What would be your way of putting it
on?@
Unsuspiciously the p~aper.hanger weot
into the subject, for he Was q little proud
OF his own taste, and by the time be had
finished his harangue W-had a pretty
clear comprehension OF what was wanted,
aud was able to finish the work satisiac.
torily. Then came a long dull time;
people were not reftting their houses
very much; nobody seemed to have any
more envelopes 10 direct, and everybody
marked their own handkerchiefs. The
VS. lived on two meals a day, II they
could be called meals, more sclnt than
the Roman feast, "a radish and an egg"
They found ont the capabilities Of = dol.
lar 10 sustain life, invested In city Rro-
eeries, and recalled all Of Dio Lewis
wisdom they could practice, but never
succeeded 10 making sixpence go 81 far
as the worthy doctor prolesses TO do. For
one thing, soup meat nowhere sold in the
city Of New York for 6 cents n pound in
those days, and hardly for twice that.
Bat live on bean porridge Al. lrugally
a. they would, there came & time when
there was no dollar TO buy beans or scrag
Of beef left. There 10 an awful beWilder.
ment in seeing the last shilling vanish,
with no chance visible Of getting another
to take its place. One feels adritt or q
wide sea without q sail in sight and dark.
ening sky above. II suddenly seems as
II one had been forgotten Of the universe
left out OF the count. Daily bread and
fire are such y matter OF course. The
VS. sat by their freless stove and
looked across at each other, wondering
II this was to be the end. Would they
be found clipging together too far gone
to speak or revive; chilled, famished,
starved to death? Last January in New
York City two such people, born to all
the pleasant things in lie, sat together
thinking these bitter questions. All one
night and day and the next night they
tasted, aud hunger grows terrible in
thirty-six hours. W went out the
next morning on his hopeless search for
work, trembling with weakness, the wind
cutting through him as he walked. Per.
haps his wife, praying desperately at
home, actually crying for something 10
eat-now her husband could not see her
was heard, OF the great kindness that
presides over nature, and help came, not
on wings OF angels, but in the prosaic
shape OF n days work at changing.
A lady wanted two rooms papered that
day for visitors, and W had to get a
workman to help him to finish the work
in time. They worked till noon. W
feeling so weak the man thought his
aboss'f must have been on a spree over.
night. Then the lady Of the house came
and kindly told W to send that poor
man down to get his dinner with the ser.
wants. OF course she never thought OF
offering the master. workman his dinner,
or would have feared to afront him as
she had. So W went ont and walked
around the block In the teeth Of the wind,
while his workman, who anne from a
hearty breakfast, sat down to a hot din
The long, hungry day came to an end,
the work was paid for and the W-sknew
how supper tasted again. And here this
story closes-a story Of experiences only
a lew weeks old and which being real we
can only say that the Wa are getting
on from week to week by the help Of
friends and little Jobs Of work and miss.
ing a meal now aud then when they have
nothing TO pay for 1t with. And their
story Il only one Of the many bearing the
same burden.