Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-05-06
A Guardian Angel.

presslv to attend it during all its
earthly life, and to do whatever such
angelic ministry can accomplish to
aid it to be a fit associate of the white
winged company in the great hereaf-
ter. These attending spirits are never
visible to our eyes, and their pres
ence does not kindle in our hearts a
very warm glow of love for their
timely help, even in the hour of our
greatest need. But we have seen
some ministering spirits, wearing the
flesh and blood of the race, in whom
the angel was not all concealed, and
it has occurred to us that it might be
a pleasant introduction to present
one of these to our readers.
David Williams was Welsh me-
chanic, many years in this country, a
great respecter of folklore and home
ly superstitions, little easy-going in
his industrial habits, and altogether
100 vi WHdO 10 hnOh III GllC
ternal revenue law as ''distilled spir-
it's His wife Jane, whose father
was a countryman of her husband in
herited from her Scotch mother a
stern and uncompromising intolerance
of anything approaching to shiftless-
ness, and sharp way of using her
tongue that was apt to leave little
sting in her speech. David had his
dreams and omens, and would stay
away from his work whole hours in
the morning, when warned by either
of these that the day was not suited
to industry. The interval was not
passed, however, at home, but in the
neighboring saloon, where much of
his hard earnings were worse than
wasted over the too familiar bar.
If Jane had been tender and win
ming she might have done more than
she did, perhaps, to correct this vice
in her husband, but her singing re-
Duke and angry prodding only made
the matter worse. David was rare
workman, and before he INDUCED so
freely had come to be foreman in one
room of the shop where he was en-
ployed; but this evil habit made it
only a question of time when he
would lose that promotion. One
night he had seen in his slumbers a
snake and a goose together, and the
union was too foreboding for his phil
osophy; so the next morning he went
to the saloon instead of the shop.
His wife suspected this, and, with
her usual resolution, she put on her
bonnet and shawl and followed to the
liquor sellers in search of him. When
she found him, glass in hand and not
q little inebriated. she berated both
him and the saloon-keeper sorely.
To escape her bitter speech poor Da-
vid fed to the shop. He was in no
condition to work, and as soon as he
made his ill-advised appearance his
doom was sealed. The senior of Pip
err & Co. had seen him staggering in,
and, calling him to the contingencies,
told him in plain terms that man
who had no control of himself was
not fit to control others, and he was
therefore discharged on the spot.
The wife secretly blamed herself
somewhat for this result of her morn
ing raid on the saloon, and succeed
ed in having her husband accepted as
a common workman, but under a new
foreman. David's spirit chafed at
this, and his visits to the saloon were
more and more frequent. The wife
would try to control his earnings, but
when he had no money he would get
the liquor on trust, and altogether his
affairs were growing worse and worse.
Just here we will introduce to our
readers a sweet, thoughtful face, very
pale, but with a winsome look about
the mouth and in the dark blue eyes,
as we saw it framed in the window of
that cottage home. She was the only
child of the house-and had then a
slight, thin form for a girl of eleven
years.
What she had done or essayed to
do to stay her fathers downward
course up to this time we cannot say,
for we never knew her before this sad
hour, when her mother lay dead after
only few hours illness, and she was
at the window watching for his re-
turning footsteps. He was not him
self when he came in, but she led him
to the bed and the sight of the life
less face on the pillow quite sobered
him. After the funeral he would go
to work, and asked jamie, who was
now his little housekeeper, to put up
Ills 1Ol l. III IL
to you," was her quiet answer. He
looked inquiringly into the dark blue
eyes fixed on his face, and he saw all
that was meant in this quiet an
swer. She knew how he had spent
his "noonings," and as far as she
could help it there should be no more
of such miserable waste.
When he was ready to go she had
her little hat in her hand, too, and to
his question, "Where to now, lassie:"
she pleaded in answer, ''Let me go
with you, father, to the shopH' He
could not say her nay, but as they
neared the saloon where he always
took his morning dram, David paused
a moment and said, "Run on, jamie,
and will overtake you at the corner"
to which the little girl. claspino his