Year: 1877

The chill breath of winter is in the air, and as the night wind whistles around the house, and wrestles with the blinds, the husband and father, happy that his wife and little ones are sheltered and comfortable, draws the drapery of his couch about him and is about going off to pleasant dreams, when the partner of his joys and sharer of his sorrows says:

 "Seth, you must go down and fix the furnace, or the gas will strangle the baby"

 Then the wretched man buttons his breakfast jacket over his night shirt, pokes his left foot into the right slipper and his right into the left, and, drunk en with sleep" feels his way down stairs, falls over the cooks nod of coal and kindlings at the kitchen door, and bursts into the cellar like torrent. He jerks open the furnace door, inhales a few quarts of coal gas, spits it up mixed with some hard words, bangs the door and knocks over the long poker and cast iron shovel with clang like a rolling mill in full operation. He selzes the wrench, and hooking it on the grate, shakes it savagely; and the grate, which has heretofore yielded sullenly to his strength, revolves as if it was set in oil, uepOb1UllR buS WIlOlS ltIc HI bilG bt5l bOA with the exception of two or three big clinkers that wedges it up edgewise. First he trieswto pull it back with the wrench, but the thing won't move. Then he gets down on his hands and knees and jabs at the clinkers with the poker like man stirring up cage of animals in a menagerie, but the hot coals heat him up to another attempt on the wrench, and springing to his feet, he braces himself for mighty pull, when the grate slips into place like a spring lock, the wrench slides off and bangs his bare shins as he staggers back and knocks his head against the plaster par tition.

 1 Just then the policeman rings the front doorbell and asks eff there is fire in there ?" and having the door slammed ill his face with No, I wish there was, tells his relief at the next corner that "old Simpkins, at Az, is drunk and raising an awful row."

 That unhappy citizen has hurried back to the cellar, and throwing a basketful of wood and kindlings into the furnace, he lights them, and starts for the coal bin. Returning with a hodful of coal, he es- says to pitch it dexterously into the fur mace. Just then a puff of wood smoke strikes him in the eyes, the edge of tine hod strikes just below the furnace door, i and the contents are dashed on the floor, with the exception of the finer particles, which sift into his slippers. With the calmness of despair he fills the furnace ! pot by shovelfuls, and with sneezes heralding coming cold, waits until the fire is an accomplished fact. As he reaches the chamber floor 8 dismal vail I freezes his already chilled blood, and he is welcomed back by his loving wife with

 "I wish you could ever do anything about the house, Seth, without making such dreadful noise. Here is the baby broad awake. and I don't believe we shall get another wink of sleep tonight. ". Then the wretchedman pulls the few hairs virtuous life has left him, the comforts of his home fade from his mind, and he wishes he was homeless wanderer in the cold streets, with the prospect of warm lodging at the station house. f Commercial Bulletin.