The Owosso times., 1881-11-18


L will 60 into the workhouse,' sale
Caleb. No man shall say I. live idl'
upon my little girls earnings. Ther
} Matte clung about his knees and be
sought him not to leave her, telling
him secret he had meant to tell the
dead mother, how that she had married
secretly fine-looking young fellow
who had gone, she knew not where
nor even whether the name in which
he had married her were his own.
Caleb lifted up his voice and cursed
the day wherein he had lost his eye
sight. IF had but the glimmer of
daylight wherewith to guide my steps,
would search the world through to
find the false-hearted coward who has
brought this shame to our door. Lord,
Thou hast dealt hardly with me in
deedp he said, with his sightless balls
lifted heaven ward.
4 Matte dropped day by day, but still
she managed to keep her customers to-
gether, and sent home smart dresses
for gay young shop girls to wear in the
summer evenings when they went
walking out with their sweeJhearts.
BY and by second Matte came-a
little fair-haired, blue-eyed thing. like
Matte the first; and though Caleb
cursed again the false-hearted man
who had left mis- Matte to struggle
through her troubles alone, the little
creature came like gleam of sunshine
into the dark life, and no one thought
more of her baby comforts, or took
more tender care of the tiny fragile
thing, than the old blind grandfather.
For Caleb was fast becoming a pre-
maturely old man now. He lack ed the
first of youths greatest preservers-
honest, steady, constant work; and he
lacked also the second-good, plain,
wholesome food. What wonder if his
back was bent, his brow wrinkled and
his hair thin and gray!
How they managed to struggle
through another five years he did not
know, no one qaite knew. The furni-
ture in the little room (they had ouly
one room now) grew less and less; also
their bread was often eaten without but
ter; also when the winter came round
Matte began to have cough and
complain of pain at her chest. Then
Caleb whispered something in little
Mattie's ear, and the child led him
down the stairs and along the streets
to a bright sunshiny wall in the big
city, where people were passing back
ward and forward all day long, and
where, if the old blind man held outhis
hat, there might be chance of finding
few stray pence in it at the end Of the
day.
The poor people in the house where
they lived felt their hearts touched
when they saw the old man and the
small white child creeping down the
stairs together, and heard the poor suf-
fering daughter coughing as she stoop-
ed over her dresses and shirts. They
shook their heads at each other: II
can't go on much longer said one to
the other; and what they'll do without
her, God only knows So they would
give little Matte cup of tea or "a bit
of cheese to take to her mother, and
the mother would drink the tea and
give the cheese to the little one, and
smile and shake her head and say she
couldn't eat.
And one day small rough boy in
the house brought to little Matte a
white terrier pup. Father was going
to drown it, he said, but told him l
thought you would like it, and may be
by and by twill help to lead the old
man along Little Matte took the
puppy gratefully and called him Jack
after her boy friend. They knOtted
piece of cord together and put it round
Jacks neck, and every day the old man,
the child and the terrier pup were to
be seen finding their way along tie
streets to the bright sunshiny wall.
Once as they stood thus in the bleak
March weather, with a northwest wind
sweeping the streets and drifting the
dust into clouds that shut out the
Spring sunbeams, poor woman came
hurriedly up to them. You'd best
make haste home, Caleb. she said, If
you want to see your daughter again
alive She forgot, poor soul, for the
moment that Caleb hadn't seen his
daughter for ten years or more, and
never could-in this life, at any rate,
see her again. But poor people, you
know, haven't much time to spend in
choosing their words, and they don't
expect other people to be very nice in
the matter either.
So Matte and Jack and the grand
father trudged the streets, and for once
i'm way got home by daylight. to fiud
Matte the elder (poor child, she wasn't
hve. and-twenty tIien) lying on the bed,
the sheet stained with blood, and her
feet and hands growing damp and cold
She's goin' fast said one of the wo
men about the bedside.
Il 'OGod,' cried Caleb, kneeling down
on the bare boards, If only for one mo-
ment l might see those blue eyes be
fore they elise foreverv Useless the
, prayer, the beating of the hands against
, the closed barred doors; Mattie's lif,
ebbed out that day before the twilight
, fell, and days after, there
} was another mound in the big paupe
! burial place outside the city. Tha
2 was all. npu
. yet live on said Caleb, as day af
|, ter day he took his stand by the sun
8 shiny wall, Matte by his side and Jacl
ON his launches a little in front. Mat
ties clothes were very thin now,. an
j; her shoes almost dropping from he
feet. One by one the little odd com
{ forts the dead mother had bought he
1 were taken to the pawnshop, and a fe,
, coppers, or at most sixpence, brough
Q back I'm return. As winter crept o
0 she began to grow white and shiver a
:, the mother had done and then coug
{ and draw her breath in as though to L