The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-11-20
THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT.

Lois stitched away night and day at
red shirts, and blue-and-white shirts,
and grey. They were the spells and
talismans that kept her all the bright
hours of the brightest days, as well as
all the dark hours of the darkest ones,
in the corner of the window of her
dingy little room,
1t was not dirty room; she kept it
clean, but a mean yellow paper and
mean yellow doors, and a backened
ceiling, and secondhand furniture,
will look dingy; and tasteful rooms,
with flowers and birds, and pretty bits
of lace curtains, and all that, cannot
be kept up by an honest young woman
who lives by making hannel-shirts, and
has a little sister to care for also.
To be sure, Trot was the Joy of Lois's
life-the one thing she had left to
love.
Once they had been so happy. Their
father, merry black-eyed sea-captan,
had kept a home for them in a sweet
country place. Their mother, bright
checked and curly-haired, had been
like an elder sister to Lois, Oh, what
merry times they had had!
But the dear fathers ship went
down one dreadful night, and when the
news came his wife only lived long
enough to kiss the little dead baby they
put into her arms, ard Lois at eight
cen and Trot at eight, Were left alone
in the world.
The house was sold. The orphans
were not too well dealt with. There
were debts to be paid; and though one
or two kind captains made up purse
for the little girls, they had families
themselves, were not rich, and were
men who were always on the wing.
Still there was enough to live on for
year, and Jack babe Lois be of good
cheer.
Jack was engaged to Lois. This
voyage ended, he would be first-mate,
and then, if she would marry him,
there would always be home for
Trot, Lois would have married Jack
if he had had no chance of promotion,
and terrible as was her grief his love
kept her heart from breaking.
But the clouds were gathering dark
er and darker about her young life.
Jack sailed away one day, kissing her
before he went with longing kisses,
and bidding her think only OF his re-
turn.
And, alas! that happened which hap
pens now and then on the great ocean
the vessel was not heard of again. 1t
was never spoken; it did not arrive in
port; no yestge of its existence was
ever washed ashore where men who
understood such things could find it.
No iigure-head, no steamer marked
with name no bottle in which some
bit Of hurried writing told its fate.
After a while old sailors knew moth
ing ever would be heard of the shin,
and they told Lois, whose heart still
chung to hope.
And now three years were gone, and
Lois stitched at the flannel shirts in
her city room, and Trot grew up thin
and quiet and eager eyed wondering at
fate, and always looking back on mer-
ry Christmas dayS and midsummer
holidays, and papO's home-comings,
and the curly-haired mother who
laughed so much, and Lois, with
dimples in her cheeks, walking with
Jack in the moonlight, and at herself,
rosy child, with store Of dolls and
sugar-plums and pretty pink and blue
dresses, and kisses innumcrable, and
she the pet of the household, as
though she were someone else.
Yet Lois loved her, and she ALWAYS
tound herself in her arms when he
awoke in the morning, Only Lois was
sad and poor, and there seemed moth
ing bright in life
On her eleventh birthday, to be sure,
She had n surprise, a beautiful book,
with gilt covers and gay pictures, She
lid not guess how much nght-work
Lois had done to earn it, and how she
was hard at work thinking, thinking,
thinking what she should do that she
might give Lois present on her birth
day. Lois would be twcnty-onc on the
third of May
To do this, Trot knew she must earn
some money, She could not sew well
enough, and though she was indus.
lrious and did all the homework, and
bought the provisions and cooked
them, and helped carry home the
bundles, that made no money.
when Trot went To the bakers foi
Dread, or to the butchers for, say, q
neck OF mutton or some sausages. or tt
the cheap store where coffee was cheap
er than It was anywhere else, sh,
thought of this constantly
ehe asked the prices Of pretty thing