Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1880-07-15

bItdtcu utI Wc1, du Sut SHOWS IL
Mother can't behave no odder way. De
good manners will come out. An she's
dat spry!"
Its pity that between you all you
are not able to make your mother thor.
oughly comfortable in her old age,"
say, slowly. In fact this view Of the
subject has freq uently presented itsell
to my mind before.
We are all so PORE" was Milly's
excuse. "An' has, what's more, such
bad feelin's inside. Sometimes I don't
hardly expec' to see one day cotch an
odder."
In truth, now that 1 took good look
at her, she was little more than skin
and bones.
Its de misery in my head" she ex-
planned. It generally is this particu-
lar form of misery with colored people,
have found. Poor soul! poor souls !
weak in body and mind and spirit
Milly and such as she are hardly able
to take care of themselves, let alone
each other.
was in hurry-who of us is at all
times free from the clutches of this fa-
mlliar fend of our overcrowded ageP-
still, something in Milly's expression
made me say, / am sorry you are Sc
badly off. Is your husband out Of
work P"
'sBless you, madam. he don't do muffin
for me now. had him goin' on nine
years, but he done lef' me now. / has
muffin but de chillun, an nubbudy
wants dem desc days" And there was
actually in her tones an apparent regret
that boys and girls had ceased to be val
liable as chattels.
Under these circumstances / aband-
oned all hope that Milly might be able
to contri butte to her mothers necessi-
ties. even inscribed her name on my
own mental tablets as an "object."
parted from her with feelings of depres-
sion all the more lively because her own
inherited cheerfulness had not sue
cumbed to the pressure of adverse cir
cumstances. She was apparently on
good terms with fate, and disposed to
make the best of things.
On Isaiah, however. looked with
sterner eyes. There seemed to be ma
tural repulsion between himself and
steady work. Odds and ends of work
he would occasionally find to do; but he
never secured a months or even a
weeks employment. He came and went
to my house on errands for his mother.
always exasperatingiy self-satisfed and
good -natured. Perhaps a little whole
some discomfort or discomfort would
have spurred him to exertion. en-
ployed him to cut the grass in our gar
den, and he really did it well, with such
self-complacency, too, that one felt that
grass-cutting was perhaps his congenial
s. here. However, work must come to
Isaiah; he would never go to look it up.
He also did little odds and ends of gar
dening for me on this same occasion,
conversing politely meanwhile. As, for
instance, iii making the hay
''In de country dey calls dis var win
nowin'. worked at harvestin' onst in
Prince Georges. Harvestin' is good fur
de nerves 1t elder increase 'em or de-
crease 'em. Mine decreased-no, Imean
ter say dey increased"
"Then harvesting didn't agree with
you?"
"Oh. yes it did. 1t suited me fust
rate. De nerves increased. I was as
hearty as buck.''
You look strong and well now" l
state. This occurs to me as a good
opening for my favorite text. Isaiah,
| wish you could contrive to do more
for your old mother"
&c does try, miss he declares; sc
does my best,a tossing the grass pic
turesquely. ss tries hard.n
Lucy had given me to understand that
Isaiah was the rakish and rowing men,
Der of her family, addicted to singing
about the streets at night, never going
to church. / referred to these facts in
his personal history. Isaiah did not
deny them. But he made promises of
amendment. /, for my part, presented
him with an old coat, on the under
standing that he was only to wear it to
church. He had pleaded bis deficient
toilet as an excuse for his neglect of
religious observances.
Not longer than week after that our
town was startled by murder com
mitted on the street at night, the victim,
an overbearing, quarrelsOme youth of
the white race, who yet ELECTED in his
death the sympathies of the whole COM
munity, so unprovoked and dastardly
was the way of his end. His murderers
were traced Immediately, and identi-
fed beyond reasonable doubt. Alas.
one of those arrested on suspicion was
the same Isaiah-1saiah Carroll-of
whom have written abovei
went to see Aunt Lucy directly, and
found her plunged in grief. But she
was confident of her boys innocence.
She bewailed the way of life which had
had caused him to be identified with the
class of men by whom the murder had
doubtless been committed. 81 ALWAYS
tell him so," she kept repeating. II
tell him his company wud be de ruin OBJ
him. 1t war de singin', miss" she re-
iterated. II allus knowed no good
wud come OBJ it,"
/ followed the evidence carefully. The
feeling of the public was dead against
the suspected murderers from the start.
/, who hac my misgivings as to Isaiah.
at least was glad that the universal
charity of the law gave the wretched
prisoners the chance to defend them
selves. / was glad to know also that
Isaiah would have an able counselor;
bnt all that could hear or read was
against him.
The line of defense chosen by all the
prisoners was to prove for themselves
an alibi. Observe that no one had seen
the murder committed. The fact that
the three men accused of the crime had
been traced from point to point through
the neighborhoOd, and on the night of
the murder, furnished the original
grounds of arrest. Isaiah, it was shown
by the prosecution, had always been
hand in glove with the two other
prisoners, Smith and. .Quinby. 1t struck
me, on reading the evidence, that 1t i'm
plicated the others far more conc1u