Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-27

of perpetual insufficiency of food. But he
was content and grateful to his fate, as the
birds are, though they hunger and thirst,
and every mans hand is against them.
The child and the tree were indissolubly
united in his mind and memory. They had
grown up together, and seemed part and
parcel of each other. Imagination scarcely
exists in the brains of the poor; they do not
know what it is. The perpetual grind of
daily want leaves no space for or possibility
of impersonal fancy in it; but in vague
kind of superstitious way, he associated the
well-being of the one with the welfare of
the other If the tree sickened and dropped
for day, he always looked nervously at
Lizina to see II she allied anything also, If
the little girl coughed or grew hot with
fever, he always watched an1iously the
leaves of the lemon. 1t was talisman and
fetisch to hlm; and when he came up from
the river at evening when his work was
done, he looked upward always to see the
green boughs of the tree at the square little
window of his garret under the deep caves,
and above an archway of old brown-red
brick.
If it had been missing at the window he
would have told himself that Lizina was
dead. There was no likelihood that 1t would
ever be missing there. Lemon trees live
long, and this one would, he knew, most
likely outlive himself if he kept it from the
worm and fy, and rot and mildew. Never
theless, he always glanced upward to make
sure that 1t was there when he toiled up the
strip of road which led to his home when
his work in the sand was done. Lzina her
self did not wait at the window. She always
came jumping and dancing down the path,
her auburn curls flying, and her big, brown
eyes sparkling; bare-footed, ill-clad,
scarcely fed, but happy and healthy, sing
ing at the top of her voice as her father had
always done in his s'youth.,
When they reached their fifteenth birth
day neither she nor the lemon tree had ever
allied anything worse than passing chill
from a frosty week, or 8 transient sickness
from sultry drought.
The lemon tree had given her the few lit
tie gifts she had ever recciv ed. The pence
brought in by its fruit were always laid out
for her; cake at Christmas, a sugar egg at
Easter a white ribbon for her first COM
munion, a pair of shoes to wear on high
feasts and holy days These little joys, few
and far between, had all come to her from
the copper pieces gained by the pale,
wrinkled, fragrant fruit sold at centimes
each in the village or the town. ''Soldi
della Lizinanina,' said her father when
ever he put any SO gained in his trouser
pocket
Well as he loved his pipe, and thankful
as he was when he could get drink of
watered wine, he never touched half
penny of the lemon money to buy a pinch
of tobacco or a glass of Mezzo-vino 1t was
all saved up carefully for his little girls
small wants. Sometimes i'll hard seasons it
had even to 60 in bread for her, but of that
bread he would never himself take mouth
full. Moreover, the pence were few, for the
lemons were not maly.
Lizina remained quite child though she
grew fast, and her little round breasts
swelled up high and firm when the rough
hempen shift cut across them Young as