The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-10-10
HOME. SWEET HOME"

Now, when the day was far spent |
girded up my loins and got me to the
train. And it was No. 90, mail express,
going east in fourteen's time for the snow
was deep. Twenty-Five was three hours
late, and fourteen was abandoned. Dimly
lighted was the car and cold. Men enrled
up in their overcoats, hated one another.
and no man spake to his neighbor by rea-
son Of the cold and the delay.
Twinkling past 60 the station lights,
white and cold lay the drifted fields, and
with rattle and jar the train erept along
Two seats ahead, a seedy-looking man be-
reft of his overcoat, and not fastidious as
to collar, began to whistle. Usually the
note of the railroad warbler wakens our
ire; but We all listened to this man.
Mellow as flute notes rose his many
puckeTed whistle, "Home, Sweet Home"
at the first line surly looking men sat up
to hear mid pleasures and palaces" Not
often did the seody whistler roam amid
very gorgeous palaces, we wot. Scant in
' NSb ~ ShN IACaSG4Ie u q mai " lbl-
out an oTercoat on a stormy night in
March. BE it ever SO humbles-we fol-
lowed the air with the words, as we listen
ed, and The stranger seemed TO be breath
ing bis very soul into the n All! yes,
humble his home might be, as lowly, in
deed, as was his state, but welcome and
warm loye-light from watching eyes, and
the home-light from the ruddy hearth, the
clinging arms of little ones waited for him,
and we were glad of it.
The very car grew warmer as he whis-
tied. Into the distant corner, away down
by the wood-box, the mellow notes drifted,
a dreamy current of melody. There's no
place Ike home" why, it swelled ont into
the very storm, with its passionate long
ing. 1t made those of us WHO were not
going home, home-sick down To the soul.
"A wand'rer from home"-there were
tears in the melody; no alien splendor
could dazzle a heart sohome loving. "0h
give me the lowly thatched cottage again.
came fairly sobbing in the tender, bird
like notes, and then again the 'Iome,
sweet home refrain, sympathetic. rich,
~plaintive, yearning.
The train slowed up. stopped, the con-
ductor came in abruptly. the mellow whis.
tie died away in a scarce audible sigh.
Come" said the conductor, 81 can't
carry you any farther
The whistler rose, and as he vainly
fumbled for a button on his buttonless
coat started for the rear door.
This way shouted the conductor, and
the whistler meekly turned and walked
out at the forward door. a lantern swings
ont from the step, the train moves on, and
the homeless whistler is shivering out in
the snow.
What station is this, CONDUCTOR
mo regular station. It's a crossing,
The station is two miles further down.
Don't stop there?"
"Where did that fellow get on?"
climbed on at the tank when we took
water, about twenty miles back"
Cam c from Nowhere, got off at No
where, Nowhere to 60, and whistled
CLONE, Sweet Home till be made us all
cry. All, me, l wish had given him a
But that's mo. My good i'm
pulses are always slow. ! never think OF
the quarter in time, unless | an on the
sleeping ear. And then the porter, who is
a believer in practical and prompt benevo-
lence. always helps me to think of it. But
the tattered whistler, whose lips dropped
music like the singing of the birds when
the vines with the tender grapes give a
good smell, why should he be bounced out
into the night and storm, when fare for
his ride and food for his mouth were right
here in a dozen pockets? Then saw that
the race is not for the swift, nor the battleto
the strong, neither yet bread to the wise,
nor yet riches to men Of understanding,
nor vet favor to men Of skill; but time and
chance happeneth 10 them all-Burdette.