The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-04-13
FOUR LIVES.
BY JOE Il. STEWART.

Little Maud Hunt was reared in ease
And always permitted to do as she'd please,
Her father was rich and u lordly man
Her mother was In society's van;
And travel the world from one end to the
You'd hardly find a more doting mother
so Maud was petted and lauded by every one,
Ana this Is the way II is always done.
With satin damask their pew was decorated,
There the family sat and ON Deity specialized
There, each Sunday, sat Maud in her silks and
lacea,
Turning hearts and heads and admiring faces,
With her arts and smiles and fashionable
graees.
Al the other end of the church, nearest the
Were the uurented pews only meant for the
Without satin damask and with uncushioned
eest--
But IN one of them sat her mother ana sweet
Jennie May,
And never were absent on a single Lords day
A poor brickayer's child. Jennie expected no
more,
And only went there her God to adore
She seemed not to care US Maud walked up the
aisle
That each face was turned to Maud all the
while.
SO the wears went by, and sweet little Jennie
Each sabbath gave her uilering-Only penny So
but this was more than war GUM by many.
In the same class at school and very near neigh
bors,
Jennie often helped Maud in her lessons and
Together they played until they were ten,
But now they never do so again.
AZ about this age, although 1t seems strange,
The rich girls friendships undergo change.
The lawyers daughter II no longer sc n
With the bricklayer's child upon the green;
They grow up and come and go, and meet
And pass each other upon the street.
You'd never suppose they'd been acquainted---
You'd rather think one with leprosy attainted
The other clean washed, almost sainted.
One Joyous and bouyant with never u sigh,
The other, toiling but hopeful day and night,
Ever with countenance radiant and bright.
Each became welded. Maud 10 a banker
Whose Golfers were filled with perishable
Jennie to Henry ormond, with no patriclan
name
And hitherto unknown to wealth or fame.
Maud's husband ut night the ''club" patron
lied.
Leaving her all alone and deeply agonized
Jennie, knowing full well the days works
Moves to the door ere setting of the sun
And joyfully welcomes her good man home.
Old Time put his sickle in among the days
And garnered the harvest of mems habits and
ways;
His good name and fortune in the wine cup.
Her father impoverished, her brown eyes IN
Her poor Hfe riven, oppressed with fears
Not for herself but her sweet little child
Now helpless and hopeless, Maud's almost
wild.
Hungry and shivering in her we'll worn dress,
Looking anywhere, everywhere to relieve her
she's moved by sound, she hears the bell
toll,
All else lost, there's hope for her soul,
Though the lightnings flash and thunders roll.
She enters the church, hears the old organ
The pauper's pew-once Jennie's-is found;
Here suppliant kneeling where once Jennie
knelt,
so full that feeling seemed almost unfelt-
While ''The Sweet Bye and Bye" the chorist-
ers sing
She meekly murmurs, "Simply to thy cross 1
cling
Now Jennie walks in and moves up the aisle,
Greeted all around with welcoming smile;
She steps TO the front in Maud's old pew,
Looks as qneenly and grand as other rich wo-
Botn women have passed under the iron rod,
And how strange 1t seems that Jennie and
Maud
Should exchange places in the house of God,
George and Henry had been boys together
Then one had cloudy, the other fair weather;
George wax reared as IL many rich mans son
And never q single days work had done;
y
Thus stranded the hopes OF his beautiful wife.
Poor and la0orious in his early days,
A laudable purpose his ambition displays
Henry toiled on, with hope bouyed mp,
Ever stunning the pernieious, vilainous emp;
He arose TO distinction, Jennie sharing his iaIe,
And just as she IL happy, Maud's dessolate-
And Just as George is small, Henry is great.
May nothing he learned from these four lives
To youths and maidens, TO husbands and
wiveel
Torture your reason as much as You can,
It's manhood not money that makes the man.
Don't adore the woman because OF her clothes,
How long she'll wear them nobody Knows
some brute ofa man she may take to her arms
Who'll part her vesture and destroy her
charms;
And you should be sure to remember, too,
The pauper may change from the pauper 8
pew.
Then, knowing how uncertain lie mans esta te,
And what may be our common fate,
Let us smile to the lowly as well as the great.
AUSTIN, Texas, April s, 1882.