Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-06-10
TheIwax-Lady.
BY B, /. p.


had never heard of Pygmalion. How
should he2 But, for all that, be did
just what Pygmalion did; he fell in
love with statue, or at least, the next
best thing to one--s wax lady in q
French hairdresser's window.
What a beautiful lady she wasl
What a lily-like complexion, what
long black eytlashes, what a tiny
rosebud mouth
How gracefully she turned slowly
round and round all day long among
the ivory powder boxes, and therazor.
strops, and the glittering cut-glsss
toilet bottles, presenting alternately
her simpering face and her elaborate
coiffure 10 the admiration of the
passer-byl
Sometimes she had her hair powder
ed, with pink rose and Paris dia-
mond sidecombs; sometimes she had a
black Spanish lace mantilla, with
crimson flowers as red as her own lips;
sometimes she had wreath of forget
me-nots, with little blue bows stuck
coquettishly all over her fiaxen plaits;
and sometimes land it was especially
then that the newspaper.boy loved to
stand and gaze at her) she was dress
cd as bride with q crown of orange
blossoms and white tulle veil
The newspaperboy was very dirty
and ragged, and nobody would have
called him good-looking even if he
had been washed and nicely dressed,
though his eyes were bright and sad,
with the same kind Of expressive hum
CRY look that the wandering street.
dogs had in theirs, as they trotted
among the busy crowd searching for
the among the busy crowd searching
for the friend and master they had
never had.
He had no shoes to his bare red
feet, either summer or winter, and no
hat to his head either-that article of
attire had long ago been thrown over
the wharf, and had foated down the
river to the open sea, or been drawn
under the coal-barges anchored at the
wharves ages ago.
The newspaper-boy could not write
his own name, even supposiug he had
aname to write, which was doubtful
matter.
His home was deplorable attic up
four crazy flights Of stairs, and his bed
q sack Of shavings stolen from the
woodward.
But in spite OF all these drawbacks
(and they we're drawbacks), the news
paper-boy was not destitute of imagi-
nation. He had even q dim percep.
tion of the beautiful!
He knew what trees we're, for he
had climbed many one in the Park,
and the birds he had often heard sing
ing at the bird-fancler's; but of the
country where all these things were to
be enjoyed together he had no distinct
idea.
Yet he often tried to picture it to
himself as he lay some nights awake
on his sack of shavings, too tired with
! his weary days march up one street
and down another, to be able to sleep.
The spring was the time the news
paper-boy liked the best, though he
would have been quite at loss to tell
you, if you had asked him why.
That little word why is such tire
some one for those to whom thought
is painful processl
He was always wishing, and always
in vague kind Of way, that some
body had taught him how to read.
Though he was one of the active
distributors of the worlds intelligence,
the very news he was instrumental in
conveying to others was a dead letter
to him.
He stood half the day on the edge
of the curb-stone beside the summary
Of the evenings news, which was
printed on big sheet In three-inch
capitals land even these he couldn't
tell one from the otherl), and kept fat
on the ground by four granite stones
off the roadway.
And the other half Of the day he
was running about till he was footsore.
Splashed by the mud Of the passing
cabs and carriages, thrashed at least
once a day by the bigger roughs,
standing with bare feet and legs in
the rain and the wind, and the dirty
slush, and snow, the newspaper-boy
was hardly q favorable specimen Of a
happy Christian child in happy
Christian land.
But he forgot, for at least q few
hours each day, all the miserie of his
friendless, forlorn destiny, when the
milliner on the corner where he stood
from FIVE to eight o'clock every even
ing, was sold up, and the French hair
dresser took the empty shop.
The newspapef-boy had often seen
lovely ladies' dressed in feathers and
diamonds passing on their way, but
he had never looked second time at
any one Of them, they all seemed 50
cold and proud, glancing through the
carriage windows as indiEerently as
though the populous streets, swarmlng
!, with human sorrows in every shape,
we're quite empty and deserted,
without single foot.passenger!
But when the wax-lady took hel
place behind the gilt-lettered plate