The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-07-04
THE BoYHooD OF JOHN B. COUGH.


His life had been peculiarly bitter one
Born in a very humble home at Sandgate, on
the English coast, cleaning with his mother
and sister after the reapers, that they might
have bread to eat, or cleaning knives and
shoes in the gentleman's house where his
father was servant, there was little to make
a boys life bright. When he was twelve, a
family offered to bring him to America, if his
family would pay fifty dollars for his pass
age.
1t was difficult to earn this, but his mother
thought, after the manner of mothers, per-
haps in the New World our John will be
somebody" SO, with tears, she packed his
scanty clothing, putting in little Bible, and
pinning on shirt these lines:
Forget me not when death shall close
These eyelids in their last repose
And when the murmuring breezes wave
The grass upon your mothers grave.
y, then. whate'er thy age or lot
May be. my child forget me not
JANE GoUGH.
Then, again and again she pressed her only
boy to her heart, and stole out behind the
garden wall, that unobserved she might catch
a last look of the stage which carried him to
London.
The voyage was a long one of nearly two
months. The little lad often cried in his cab
in, and he wrote back, @ [ wish mother could
wash me tonight" showing what a tender
mothers boy" he was When New York
harbor was entered, and he was eager to see
his adopted country, he was sent below to
black boots and shoes for the family
His school days were now over After two
years of hard work in the country, he sold his
knife to buy postage stamp and wrote to his
father, asking his permission to go to New
York and learn a trade. Consent was given,
and, in the middle of winter, our English lad
of fourteen reached the great city, with no
home, no friends, and only fifty cents in his
pocket. Hundreds passed by as he stood on
the dock, holding his little trunk in his hands,
but nobody spoke to him. But at last, by
dint of earnestness, he found a place to enter
as errand-boy and learn book binding receiv-
ing two dollars and twenty-five cents a week,
and paying two dollars cut of this for his
board. How his employers supposed he
he could live on one dollar month for clothes
and washing, has never appeared.
The first night he was placed by his board
ing mistress in an attic, with an Irishman
who was deathly i'll. The second night the
man died, and the horror-stricken young
boy stayed alone with the dead till morning
Now, nearly two painful years more went
by. Finally, though he earned but three
mother and sister When they arrived two
rooms were rented the girl found work in a
straw-bonnet factory and, poor though they
were, they were very happy. John was now
sixteen, devoted to his mother, and still a
noble, unselfsh, persevering boy.
AT the end of three months, through dull
ness of business, both children lost their
places, and now began the struggles which
the poor know SO well in our large cities In
vain they looked for work. Then they left
their two decent rooms and moved into gar
ret. Winter came on, and they had neither
fuel or food. John walked miles out into the
country, and dragged home logs, of wood
which lay by the roadside. He pawned his
coat that his mother, who had now become
i'll, might have some mutton broth.
One day he left her in tears and went sob
bling down the steet.
"What is the matter ~ asked stranger
I'm hungry, and SO is my mother
"Well, can't do much, but I'll help you
little, and he gave John three-cent loaf of
bread.
When the boy reached home, the good
woman put the Bible on the rickety pine table,
read from it, and then all knelt and thanked
God for the precious loaf. In the spring he
obtained employment at four dollars and q
half per week. But the hand of poverty and
privation had fallen too heavily, rested too
long upon the mother; one day, while pre-
pairing Johns simple supper of rice and milk,
she fell dead. All night long the desolate
boy held her cold hands in his then in that
christian city, she was put in pine box and,
without shroud or prayers, carried in cart,
her two children walking behind it, and
buried in the potter's field.
For three days afterward John and his sis
ter never tasted food Probably the world
said g Poor thingsl" but it is certain that no
body offered to help them Vide AsoGke.