Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-09-21

mother, how that she had married secret
~ fne-looking young fellow who ha6
made love to her, how that where he ha0
gone she knew not, nor even whether the
name in which had married her were his
| own.
Caleb lifted up his voice and cursed
the day wherein he had lost his eye-sigEt.
eff 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
has dealt hardly with me indeed!'' he
said, with his sightless balls lifted
| heavenward.
Matte dropped day by day, but still
she managed to keep her customers to-
gether, and sent home smart dress for
gay young shop-girls to wear in the sum-
mer evenings when they went walking
out with their sweethearts. By and by
a 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 his
Matte to struggle through her troubles
alone, the little creature came like a
CLEAN of sunshine into his dark like, and
no one thought more of her baby COM
| forts, or took more tender care of the
tiny fragile thing, than the old blind
grandfather.
For Caleb was fast becoming prema-
| turely old man now. Helacked the first
of youths greatest preservers-honest,
steady, constant work; and he also lacked
the sccond-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 quite knew. The furniture
in their little room (they had only one
room now grew less and less; also their
bread was often eaten without butter
| also when the winter came round Matte
began to have a cough and complained
of a pain at her chest. Then Caleb
| whispered something in little Mattie's
ear, and the child led him down the
stairs along the streets to O bright sun
shiney wall in the big city, where people
were passing backward and forward all
day long, and where, if the old blind
man held out his hat, there might be a
a chance to find 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 Oldham and his small white
child creeping down the stairs together,
and heard the poor suffering daughter
coughing as she stoopedover her dresses
and skirts. They shook their heads at
each other; cit 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 Mat
| tie cup of tea or 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 a 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 I
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
UuSI1 way GG0 SbE6SUS 10 Uu0
bright sunshiny wall.
Once as they stood thus in the bleak
March weather. with a northeast wind
sweeping the streets and drifting the
dust into clouds that shut out the spring
sunbeams, poor woman came hurriedly
up to them. "Yo1'd best make haste
home, Caleb" she said, 4" 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 ally 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 through the streets, and
for once in way got home by daylight,
to find Matte the elder (poor child, she
wasn't f7e-and-twenty them lying on
the bed, the sheet stained with blood,
and her feet and hands growing damp
and cold
"She's going FAST" said one of the
women about the bedside.
% God, cried Caleb, kneeling down
| Oh tne Uafe DoaruS, II only 1Or one mo-
ment | might see those blue eyes before
they close forever Useless the prayer,
the beating of the hands against the
closed barred doors; Mattie's life ebbed
out that day before the twilight fell, and
-well-two days after, there was another
mound in the big pauper burial-place
outside the city. That was all.
eyes I live on" said Caleb, as day
after day he took his stand by the sun
shiny wall, Matte by his side and Jack
on his launches little in front. Mat
ties clothes were very thin now, and her
shoes almost dropping from her feet.
One by one the little odd comforts the
dead mother had bought her were taken
to the pawn shop, and few coppers OF
at most sixpence, brought back in re-
turn. AS winter crept on she began to
grow white and shiver as the mother had
| done and then cO1pb and draw ba,