Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1888-09-13
CHAPTER XIV.
suNnnY OBSERVATIONS

sUNDRY OBSERVATIONS.
The next day Jameson went with tho ar
list to good Mr.. Osgood, and proposed TO IN
dertake the task Of conducting a school. The
preliminaries were speedily arranged; he was
to receive a small weekly stipend, enough,
with prudence, TO meet his household ex-
penses, and was 70 commence at once. Both
of the gentlemen accompanied him 10 the
quarter where his labor was to begin. A
large room was hired in a rickety and for
lorn-looking house; the benches for the schOl-
ars and a small desk and chair We're the only
furniture. And such scholars.-fa different
from tire delicate, curled darliugs Of the pri-
vate schools. The new teacher found his
labor sufficiently discouraging. 1t was moth
ing less than the civilization of a troop of
savages. Everything was to be done; man
ners, speech, moral instincts, were all equally
depraved. They were TO be taught neatness,
respect, truth-telliug, as well as the usual
branches OF knowledge. 1t was like the task
of the pioneer settler in the wilderness, who
must uproot trees, drain swamps, burn briers
aud branibles, exterminate hurtful beasts.
and prepare the soil for the reception of the
seeds that are to produce the future harvest.
We leave him with his charge, while we at
tend to other personages of our story.
Mr.. Norcross and his sister, upon leaving
their house, look lodgings, and then began 10
cast about them for the means Of support.
The money he had relied on was gone His
credit was utterly destroyed, and he had no
hope Of being r~einstated in his former posi-
ton. The only way he could possibly be use
full in the street was by becoming a curbstone
broker, a go-between, trusted by neither bor-
rover on lender, and earning a precariOus
livelihood by commissions. Even in that po-
sition he felt that he should labor under dis
advantages, for he knew that his course had
been universally condemned. It was a mat
ter of everyday experience for him to meet
old acquaintance who looked over him, or
across the street, or in at shop-windows, to
avoid recognition. And the half patronizing,
half contemptuous mods he did receive were
far worse to bear than downright cuts.
To a man out of employment, prescribed,
marked, there is nothing so terrible as the
impenetrability Of the close ranks OF society
around him. Every busy man seems to have
found his place; each locks step with his
~neighbor, and the vast procession moves on.
Once out of the serried order, the unhappy
wretch can never resume his position. He
finds himself the fifth wheel of a coach; there
is nothing for him to do-no place for him at
the bountifuI board where others are fed.
He may starve or drown himself, as he likes:
the world has no use for him, and will not
miss him. What Norcross felt, as he walked
along the streets, may well be imagined. II
he had not been supported by the indomita-
BILE courage and assurance of his sister, he
would nave sunk to the level of a pauper.
He tried to act as a curb-stone broker, as
an insurance agent, as an adiuster of marine
Z ta-eae mud a ne M aawana 1.sN
for a life insurance company, as an account
ant. and IN various other situations. All i'm
vain. He was Stunned like an escaped con
vict; the motley suit itself would hardly have
added to his disgrace. No one put faith in
him or gave him employment-save in a few
instances, for charity's sake. Few men can
brave a city; and Norcross certainly was not
the man to do it. The scowling, or suspi-
cious, or contemptuous, plying glances he
encountered smote him as with fiery swords.
He quailed: he covered; he dropped his
eyes; he acquired a STOPPING, stumbling gait.
The man who feels that he is looked down
upon grows more diminutive in his own esti-
nation, until he shrinks into the place which
the world assigns him. So Norcross shrunk,
until he crept through the streets where once
he had walked erect, aud earned a support as
meagre and precarious as the more brazen-
faced and ragged Of the great family of men
dicants, to which he was gravitating.
Mendicants-an exceeding great army.
They do not all knock at area doors for old
clothes and broken %victual, nor hold out hats
at street-crossings, nor expose ~sharp-faced
babies TO win pity, nor SEND their infant tat
terdemalions to torture the ears of the
wealthy with scratchy fiddles and wheezy
accordions. No, these plaques of society are
only the extreme left wing; the right wing
is-a very respectable class in the commu-
nifty. The party-leader who makes his name
and influence serve him in obtaining loans
which he never intends TO pay-shall we call
him a beggarl Il is an ugly word. The
parasite who makes himself agreeable TO
d~inner-givers, who calculates upon his ac-
complishments as a stock in trade, intending
that his brains shall feed his stomach-what
is he, pray! II is ungracious TO stigmatize
such a jolly dog. The woman whose fingers
are hoped with rings won in wagers which
gallantry or folly could not decline, who is
ready by philoppna, or even more direct sug-
g~estions, to lay every beau or acquaintance
under contributions she 4 beggar, tool It
is a long way, 10 be sure, from the girl with
scanty and draggled p%etticoat and tangled
hair, picking out humps OF coal from ash
heaps, or carrying home refuse from the
tables of the rich-a long way from that
squalid object to the richly cloaked, furred,
bonneted, jeweled, flaming lady, whose
friends are all so kind.
But the most charitable must feel a certain
degree of pity, if not Of scorn, for those who,
like Mr.. and Miss Norcross, c~ontrive TO wear
the outwardi semblance of responsibility,
boarding with fashionable people and wear
ing garments a la mode, while they have
neither fortune not visible occupation. Miss
Norcross, to be sure, had a few pupils in mu-