The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1883-12-27
TWO UNEXPECTED NEW YEARS
fs CALLS. s

Youths Companion.
TWO UNEXPECTED NEW YEARS
aPears to me if I had some of 'em,
pears to me I'd git well right away"
said Tony in a fretful voice. s.Don't
you member 'em, SabieP"
"sYes, I member EN- good" replied
Sable, tanning the sick boy with an old
straw fan she had picked up some
where. And then she went on to say
the same thing she had said a hundred
times or more before when asked the
same question.
..They wuz a-growin' 'longside that
place they called wood though it
didn't look much like wood to mech,
SIGH lots of 'em-red as YOUR flaming
shirt, Tony, an a-kinder a-hidin' under
their greens. An the man wot wuz
a-cuttin' a tree says: Eat away, young
'uns, they's free.' An us eat away an
away, an oh, they wuz pufickly III
cious. An there wuz jes' as many wen
us stopped a-eatin' as wen us beginned.
They wuzn't bit like the strawberries
they gives me to the markit sometimes
wen they can't sell 'em. Them's
smashed an But wot you a-cryin'
for, TonyP" 8
.'Pears to me, sobbed Tony, ..if Z
had some from that very place I'd git
well right away. They wuz SO 'freshin',
SabieIf
Poor little fellow, with nobody to
look after him but Sable and an old
grandmother! And the old grand
mother, who had been growing feebIer
and feebler year by year for many
her big rocking-chair and knit coarse
stockings and mittens, singing the
while, in asweet, quivering voice, the
old-fashioned hymns she had learned in
her girlhood.
Sable sold these stockings and nit
tens during the cold months from door
to door in poor neighborhoods, and on
what money was earned in this way the
three just managed to live. But in
warm weather, had it not been for the
kindness of a jolly fat man who kept an
eating-saloon near by, they would have
often gone hungry. He saved for them
the best of the food left by his custom
ers (sonle of whom, thinking them
selves hungrier than they really were,
ordered more than they could eat), and
often when business had been unusually
brisk he added two. or three rolls, a
handful of crackers, or a yesterdays
pie.
A very good girl was Sable. Not
pretty, though she. might have been if
her face had not been so pale and thin,
for she had soft gray eyes with long
lashes, and curly brown hair; and not
clever, for she did not even know her
letters. She was nearly ten, three
years older than Tony, and yet she had
never been to school a day in her life.
Her mother dying, after a long illness,
when she was but six years old, the
are of her little brother fell almost
entirely upon her, Granny then being
able TO 90 put with the mittens and
stockings herself. But now that Granny
had forgotten her way about the streets,
and could only see enough to knit.
Sable had to do the selling, the market
ing and the Homework, all three. She
was a shy child, and made no ~acquaint-
anees either in the tall tenement-house,
in the cellar-basement of which they
lived. or abroad, and so, you see, her
world was a very small one, containing
only Tony and Granny and two or
three of the market people. 6
Tony had been delicate and almost
helpless from his birth, but Sable loved
him one the less for that. In fact, 1
think she loved him more because he
was SO dependent on her. That's a
way girls and women have, as perhaps
you know. And when, just after Christ
mas, he began to cough so badly that
he grew SO tired he could no longer sit
up, her heart ached for him, and all
the time she could spare from her work
she spent at his bedside trying to amuse
and cheer him.
Now the summer before the winter
of which l write these two children and
their grandmother had been taken by
the cook of the eating-saloon to spend
the day in the country, where some
:, friends of hers lived. Sable and Tony
had never been in the country before
and at first, awed by the silence broken
only blythe rustling of the leaves, the
hum of the insects and the song of the
birds, they spoke in whispers; but soon
after arriving at the very small cottage
of their friends friends they left
Granny and the other. older folks to
chat AID drink tea and wandered of
hand in hand together, hooking the
birds as they went. They kept straight
on through the wood in which the
small cottage stood, turning neither to
the right nor the left lest they should
get lost, until they reached the extreme
edge, and there they found a patch-a
long patch-of wild Strawberries.
Strawberries a-growin'! strawber-
ries a-growin'!" they shouted, and down
went Sable on her knees before them,
an example which Tony soon followed.
"They's hitler than market straw
berries" said she, '.but they's cum
miner an'"-tasting one-"sugarer. /
wonder if us kin take some"
sKin US, manp'i called Tony to a
man who was cutting down a dead tree
on the other side of the road.
''Can you what?'' asked the man. "a
Take some of them strawberries?"
answered Tony.
Take away; they're Free" was the
reply.
And they did take away. Thew
picked and ate until their faces and
hands were stained a strawberry red,
and only stopped when their friend
came to lookfor them and tell them it
was almost time to go home.
Nog was 1lhO d dlHDOW S6B IN
their dreary life, and though the good
natured cook to whom they owed it had
returned soon after to Germany, her
native land, they had neve ceased to
think of her with love and thankfulness,
and to remember her in their PRAYERS.
1t had been a day in June-that beau
tiful day-and now it was the last of
December, but still its brightness came
back to the sick boy, and with it a long
Ing for the sweet red berries that grew
on the edge OF the old wood.
'Pears to me, if 1 had some, this
pain in my breast would go away" he
moaned. ''They wuz so good, Sable,
l kin see 'em now wen l shuts me eyes.
Poorly red Strawberries. o! if YOU
could only git some fur me, Sable, dear
sabier'