News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-04-16
SANDY'S DIAMOND.

"Now, Sandy, it's your turn; why
don't you read have you lost the
PIacea''
Sandy Strengthened the tails of his
ragged coat with an air of conscious
virtue; he was not given to losing his
place, whatever the others might be.
Now, Judas said this, not because he
cared for the poor, but because he was
thief, and had the bag" he read out in
a shrill treble. "It was an awful pity
they let him keep the bag, then," he
added by way of comment.
"Maybe they'd no ken he was thief"
suggested his neighbor, who was
Sandy's chief friend and ally; "and may
be you wad have helped yourself bit
now and again, Sandy, if you'd had as
good a chance"
"Speak for yourself, Sam Knox," was
Sandy's hasty retort. ''I'm no thief, at
any rate"
''Boys, attend to the lesson" inter-
rupted the teacher, and the debate had
perforce to be postponed for the present.
Sandy marched home after school,
swelling with indignant pride, utterly
declining Sans usual escort. The two
were friends more from force of circum-
stances than natural affinity. Both
earned a scanty income in London,
carrying parcels and messages from the
railway to the different quays; but
though they held the same profession,
and were comrades to a certain extent,
Sandy by no means considered Sam in
the light of an equal; his clothes were
in many degrees more ragged, his shoes
thing of the past. or future, and, in
point of family connections-well,t there
could be no comparison between Sans
drunken father and his own thrifty,
hard-working mother. Decidedly Sam
i. lust be made to understand that he was
not to disparage his superiors in public
with impunity.
The GOODNESS lasted some days, and
might have lasted much longer, but for
startling adventure that befell Sandy.
Trudging round the edge of the dock at
dusk one evening, with huge package
for coasting steamer, his foot struck
against something-something that gilt
tered in the dim light "Just bit of
glass;" he said to himself, turning it
over with the toe of his shoe; and then
he dropped his burden with a crash, and
swooped down upon 'his fnd."
It was ring, dull and tarnished with
mud but neither crushed nor broken,
and the "bit of glass" was the stone. 1t
cleaned out like the windows on the op-
posite shore at sunset. In his younger
days, before he became such practical
person, he had firmly believed that
Paradise lay over there; he knew bet
ter now, but for moment, as it lay on
his palm. he almost fanciedit must have
come from that region.
Only for moment; then Sandy was
his cautious little self again. He rolled
it up carefully with the private store of
halfpence that even his mother, worthy
woman, did not know of, shouldered his
package and delivered it at the tiny
DOOklIB OllCO III lilo 6IIli VI bllO quay,
sturdily argued out the question of an
additional penny on account of its size
with the clerk, and got it, and then he
betook himself to solitary corner of
the dock wall and sat down behind a
sugar cask to consider matters.
First and foremost, should he tell his
motherp He rather thought not She
might insist upon delivering it up to the
authorities, and taking the chance of a
possible reward; and Sandy had an ex-
ceedingly uncomfortable conviction that
that was just what he ought to do. Yet
he remembered a boy who found a
pocketbook on the gangway, and the
owner only gave him shilling for it;
and another who found telescope and
got nothing. Sandy felt that fortune
lay within his grasp, and that if he had
to barter it away for one shilling, or
even five, it would be paying too dearly
for principles.