Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-01-31
HER BOY.

Miss B0ught0n was leanlng against Lne
shelves of little, lowceilinged, crowded,
secondhand book-shop in Broadway, Just
above Thirty-sixth street, dipping into a
volume of NJ. Ampere.
"Will you please do that up for mel !"
she said, holding it out. AS she extended
her arm, her large sleeve happened to brush
open the cover of one of those soft, leath
er.cover-covered, old-fashioned Bibles, ly-
ing on pile of school books and her eye
caught the delicate faded traceries of an
inscription on the yellow fiy-leaf-"To my
darling boy, from his loving mother"
CON- she said, with a panied start;
chow could any one I'll take that too,
please, and she closed the cover quickly,
reverently. 1t seemed to her so shocking,
so cruelty, needlessly, cold-hearted, in any
one to sell such gift, to throw away such
token of mother-love. The quaint, fine,
faded handwriting called up a hundred
fancies of home and childhood and fond
ling care and starlit pleadings beside little
beds. Who was the mother who prayed2
and where was the boy who wandered and
forgot? she wondered. Or, kinder thought,
perhaps he was dead too, and the book
that he had wept over and found comfort
in had so fallen into careless strangers
hands, and made its way at last to the old
grammars and stray magazines. She was
glad at least that it had come to one who
would preserve and cherish it as some
thing most sweet and beautiful and pa
thetic
The autumn shower which had driven
her into this little exchange for rusty liter
atue had now broken away, aud watery
ray of sunshine came struggling in at the
door, resting on the bent gray figure of the
proprietor tying her bundle, and on anoth-
er person whom she had not observed, and
who was lounging against one of the cases
opposite her, lingering the pages of an old
picture book, and regarding her with pc
culiarly eager, covert gaze. He was a
broken-down man of perhaps forty, dress
ed in short frock-coat, well buttoned up,
that too intimate acquaintance with rain
and weather had turned to peculiar green
color, and from out which his long lean
arms and neck protruded to an extraor-
binary length. He was type easy enough
to Classify type one often sees in public
Libraries and round old book stalls, refined
and poor and i'll and dissipated. Yet there
was something so pathetic in his pale,
weak, intellectual face, something so ap-
pealing and intense in the look of his large,
bright brown eyes, which for an instant
caught hers over his hollow hectic cheeks,
that Miss Boughton had a sense of near
ness and sympathy for this dingy memory
of what was once perhaps kind and hon
est gentleman. She of course turned away
her eyes politely, but instead of taking
her package, she said "Oh, by-the-bye, |
have just happened to think that I've got
to go to lunch with some people. Would
you mind sending these books home for
me? It's only step. l live in Thirty
eighth street." As she gave the number,
she thought she saw the other listening,
with his body bent over the pages, and his
long lean finger pressed against his thin
chin. She hoped he wasn't going to come
and beg. Somehow she couldn't help be.
lieving him to be a gentleman. She would
be so glad to help him, but she didn't want
him to spoil himself.
Miss Boughton threw NJ. Ampere care
lessly on the table on her return that after
noon, and took up the worn old Bible with
a certain indignant pity. Perhaps there
might be some further biographical details.
She turned the pages dreamily idly, in a
kind of sad pleasure, when suddenly she
came upon verse enclosed in broad cir
Gle of ink; and it was this: 81 bowed
down heavily as one who mourneth for his
mother" She closed the book very gen.
thy. There were tears in her eyes. "Ah,
he didn't forget" she murmured.
One snowy winter morning, some two
months subsequent to this little episode,
her maid brought her note, with the
message that an answer was requested. 1t
was addressed in large, shaky, mascu-
line hand, and quickly opening it, she
read: "Sone two months ago, you may re-
member buying Bible in the old book
store just round the corner from Thirty
sixth street. The book was mine. When
l tell you that it was my dear mothers
gift, that she wrote my name there, and
that it was my one memento of a happy
past, you will understand how i value it.
l sold it because l had had nothing to eat
in three days. l asked her if sh ed mind,
don'tyou know, and she seemed to tell me
to. But l went there and watched it till
could get 1t back again, and then you came
and bought it. l knew by your face why
you did. God bless you for i'll listened
for your address. l hoped each day to
come and buy it. I'm dying now, they tell
me, so never can repay you; but would
you mind sending it to me? do want it
so. 1t can't mean much to you, and to
me it is all the world-all that is left of
hope, memory, companionship, love,
home"
Through the long bare wards of the hos
pital the white-gowned nurse led her ST.
lently; opposite them the snow was mot
Ting the great high windows. The whole
atmosphere was so tense with stiffness and
suffering and death that the young lady
shivered among her wraps as she passed
down the aisle. He had evidently been ex
pecting her, for he had been cleaniy shaved,
and Miss BoughtOn was shocked yet
pleased by his appearance. He was terri
bly, emaciated, and as he lay with closed
eyes and his face half turned away, she
noticed the fine delicate chiseling of his
features, and the sensitive, almost femi-
nine curves of his mouth under his mus
tache. One hand lay closed on the cover
lid, bony and large. His malady seemed
to have cleansed away all the weakness and
dissipation and squalor, and left only the
fine and beautiful. Life had clothed him
in shame and Indebtedness; deaths mantle
draped him in awful dignity. The nurse
touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"Here is some one to see YOU" she said
He opened his eyes, which, bright with
fever, were startling, brilliant, and beauti-
full, and feebly tried to turn himself, smil-
ing, and looking at the bundle she held