Year: 1878

anybody to have drop of beer or pip


OF 'baccy. He's a regular old miser


that's what he is"


But the old man paid no attention d
the rude boys and girls, except to turl
his black eye on them once in Will,


when they became too annoying, bu
passed his time when at home readin,
something from his stock in trade, or
with eyes haltclosed in deep though
about what no one but himself eve
knew, when one bright, warm May day
he came slowly into his living.roon
from the street, carrying heavy bag OIL
his shoulder. q. ....- .. .... .r-.. -


He placed the bag upon paper otto
man, sat down on the paper bed beside
the paper table, wiped his face with
handkerchief, and then opened the bag
and tumbled the contents out upon the
paper carpet.


He had bought them that morning ol
school teacher who lived at the Other
end of the town, four miles away, and they
consisted of soiled copy-books, old
grammars, biographies, arithmetics,
histories, readers, with as many dogs.
ears as would have supplied several
large dog families, old reports and old
compositions, each of the latter rolled
up neatly by itself and tied with a bit
of pink ribbon.


AS the old man took two or three Of
these compositions from the pile before
him, he began to talk to himself, as peo-
pie who live lonely life are sometimes
in the habit of doing: "All these long
years." he said, "and 1 have never
found anything of value. No wills,
no bank notes, no trace of my lost
family-nothing that people in my busi-
ness are always finding in stories, " and
as he said this his black eye fell upon a
name written in child's struggling
hand on the back of one of the papers
he held" Ruth Sands Norris" and
underneath, in the teachers writing,
" Very good, indeed, for a little girl of
ten." .......


The old man hastily united the ribbon
with trembling hands, and with q
strange light breaking over his wrinkled
face, unrolled the paper, turning his
blue eye upon it, began to read. And
this is what he read: .a


STORY.


Some girls-most girls-well, any
how, good many girls-do not like to
write oeo eSnpSsitjoRs ssdG Bs 6dSs do to pa an or.
thur and write stories and perhaps
PONIES for all the great maggiezines and
papers, and some day may be whole
book.


My mama says my grandfather, the
one have never seen, was very fond of
literaychure.


Literaychure means things that are
made up out OF peoples heads and then
printed. 1 do not mean all peoples
heads, for hundreds and hundreds have
not that kind of head, but smart peo-
ple's heads.


He used to be always talking rimes
and it is about him my story is to be. He
was very good man, but very funny.
Not the funny to make folks laugh, but
the other funny. He had one black eye
and one blue one, and he was always
falling into referee. Referees are
when you think so hard you do not
know anything at all. Well, when my
mamma was a little littler than me, her
father - that is my grandfather, of
one day to see an old
friend of his off to o loren country, and
after he said good-by to his friend in the
cabin, he went up on deck and fell into
a awful referee and the ship carried him
off too.


There was dreadful time when he
did not come home, and grandma shut
up the bookstore-he kept second
hand bookstore--for three whole days
and nights, and then she could not get
along that way. go she opened it again.
In long time they got letter from
Grandfather Sands, and it begun: ooh |
do not be distressed for me, against my
will borne off to sea, for think good
luck will come of it, and the rest was
that he was in Ostrayler and was going
to stay there a year or SO until he made
a lot of money, cause there was lots of
money there and monkeys and parrots
wish 1 had one--and savages.


Grandma sent an answer, but she
never got letter from him again. And
then after five years some one came
back from there and said the saveges
had killed him. Savages do not care
for rimes and literayture. And grand
mother sold all her books and furniture
'cept some feather beds and went to
America--we lived in England first-no
I did not for / was not on earth yet not
till good while after, but the other
members of the family did. And my
mamma grew up here to be lovely
maiden and got married but she was not
very happy for somebody drank. 1t is
awful thing to drink. I do not mean
tea, or coffee, or lemonade, or milk or
likeris water, or plain water but other
things and I often wish the savages had
let grandfather alone and then he would
have come home and mamma would
have married some other person and
would not have been q desolate widow
with two. girls and one boy.


1.-THE end or fnis.1