The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-01-01
THE MISER'S REFORMATION.
The American Rural Home.

how Losing wife and child while /
was still young man broke medown.
For a time Ididn'tcar whether lived
or died, but | still kept on with nay
business, and presently | found my
self beginning to love money. 1t be-
came thegreatest pleasure OF my exist
epce to count up my gains, and to
add dollar to dollar.
The house Ihad furnished so prettily
for Marie, and which shehad taken SO
much pride in, left to itself began to
show signs of neglect. For a time |
retained the old ~housekeeper, to
brighten up things and keep them
tidy, but that luxury cost too much,
and / dismissed her.
Then, not liking to see the pretty
things that had been so dear to Ma
RE go to decay through dust and neg
lect, / had them carried up to the
great garnet that extend ed the whole
length of the house.
did feel for a time very unhappy
when they were all banished, and |
was left with the bare boards and two
or three chairs, but | consoled myself
with the reflection that some day |
would have them all back again.
| turned the once pleasant roo m in
which / had spent so many cheerful
hours with my wife and little one into
a sort of second Office, and there |
slept, ate my scanty meals and did
much Of my work. 1t was q sordid,
sorry life. denied myself every COM
fort almost, but that of fire, in the
dead of winter. That | would have,
and of the best hickory, no matter
what it cost. Meats and delicacies |
could do without, books and comforts
of many sorts, but q fire, that vas
the one link that bound me to the in
stincts of my kind.
Igrew shabby, seedy, lean and ugly.
My hair began to stand up on my
head through lack of sufficient moist
ure, my eyes grew hollow, my cheeks
were sunken, and | looked like what |
was, a miser. To gather gold, to count
it, to gloat over its accumulation, and
that for its own worshipped sake, be-
came the ruling passion OF my life.
Not houses and lands, and friends
that might have been bought, but gold,
gold, gold! For this Islaved, neglect
ed my kind, and denied God.
] shall never forget Tuesday the
18th day of January, Ammo Domino,
eighteen hundred and sixty-seven.
That isthe way Ihave written it down
in my day-book.
Imagine my coming to my solitary
house, in the lower part of the great
city of New York, hemmed in by
warehouses.
/ say, imagine me shiyeringin a thin
coat, buttoned up over q pocketbook
as plethoric as | was lean, entering
the implanted and c~obwebbed front
door, and walking through the large
hall, solacing myself with the thought
that / should soon be comfortable in
front of blazing fire, and finding, as
/ opened the door to my own den, a
great red flame upon the hearth, and
covering over it the thin, almost skel-
eton form of a child.
Shall / ever forget the unearthly
look of the great dark eyes she turned
upon me, eyes that seemed to light up
the very corners of the room, to my
frightened, excited fancy. | came for
ward slowly; she never stirred, only
continued to gaze on me with a
strained, pitiful expression, until she
spoke, seeing that | came to a pause.
"Oh, the fire is so good!"
"Whatd do you mean? Who areyou?
How did you get in here?" | asked
sternly.
~ crawled in through the bars, down
into the cellar. / guess | stayed there
all night. Oh, it was so dark and
cold! But Pm used to that now.
Then / found the cellar door, and it
was open, and | came here, and there
VAS Goals on the hearth and / made q
fire."
If the child had not been pretty, I
am sorry to be compelled to say,
pretty in spite ofthe CRIME, the tousled
hair, the rags and the marks of hard
living, and perhaps brutal treatment,
or if she had come there in any other
fashion, at the door as O. mendicant,
or even been sent there by any friend,
/ should have expelled her on the in
slant, but she had thrown herself
upon my bounty-the fire lit up the
dark eyes, that somehow made me
think of those of my own little pet
she had stood her ground without
fiDehing, she had prepared an agree
able surprise by making the fire, for /
was very cold, and she did not seem in
the least afraid of me-"
Where do you belong?" / asked.
81 don't belong anywhere"
"Well, who takes care of you? Who
do you live within"
II don't live with any body. |