Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1888-11-10
/" Mr.. Wilfer. y


is ready for the fray. Like the old-tme school
master who failed right and left as he walked up
and down the line no culprit escapes the rod OF
punishment, and the innocent and guilty receive
alike
The labor agtator and the prohibtionist and the
philantmopist in every possible direction are plying
4heir trade, announcing their ideas, till the world
has become devided into but the two casses-the
oppressor and the oppressed.
On the topmost round of the ladder of popu-
larty are the espousers of the unpopular cause
of one kind or Notwithstanding their pens and
tongues, sharpening their wits, launching their
opinions and hurting their ideas down at the ever
passing throngs of people below them. The guilty
dodge the missiles and pass ON, the innocent who
sympathize are harmed no more than the sparrows.
But there is another class who slip by, receive no
attention, and are also unframed. Their unaverted
eyes receive no fragment of the sand to offend and
disturb from the bombardment overhead and the
world has well nigh forgotten their existence.
They are the Mr.. Wilfers of the world. Men
whose virtues are written in water as Shakespeare
puGs l6 anu are HOG preserved.
Dickens never conceived more truthful char
acter than Mr. Wilfer-a poor clerk, limited sal
airy and an unlimited family, so that he never at
tanned the modest object of his ambition, which
was to wear a complete new suit of clothes, hat
and boots included at one time His black hat
was brown before he could afford coat, his pan
falcons were white at the seams and knees before
he could buy pair of boots, his boots were worn
out before he could treat himself to new pantaoons.
and by the time he worked round to the hat again,
that shining modern article rooted in an ancient
ruin of various periods
The world is full of Mr.. Wilfers-patient, plod-
ding, accomplishing impecUnious Mr.. Wilfers-
with their noses at the grindstone of circumstance
and necessity. No reformer runs after them; no
temptation assails them in their duty no one, in
fact, molests them unless, perchance, the billcol-
lector, when Mr.. Wifers purse Yields up its last
penny without sigh and he journeys on with
patient smile in his heart
1t is to the Flooding Wilfers that the world tacks
its responsibility. 'Impecunous but honest"
goeth not for much in the worlds estimate but it
keeps the world moving and forms the cornerstone
OF the greatest number of homes in the land. The
latchstring is always out and bills and babies come
unannounced, unlimited, but not unwecome.
The lines deepen triAe with every year in the
brow OF this patient bread-winner, the pocketbook
telescopes little sooner each time, the shoulders
bend little more with the increase of burden.
whilst he plods submissively on
Reforms are born and die, but they are not for
such as he; no one asks him to be q torcb-bearer
and he has no time to offer. Only in the home
circle for which he lives, is he a necessity and
even there, as the little ones rise to the dignity of
sons and daughters, he seems to lose his identity
and he becomes ''only father"
Who does not know such man? God bless
him and while the world is being stirred up about
sacrificing woman he has no champion; no one to
tell Of his weary days of toll that only pay for the
few crumbs of comfort he succeeds in earning for
those he loves. There are no medals pinned to his
threadbare coat to tell of sacrifices and vigls and
perpexities, of which his humdrum life has been