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"PAUPER: A poor person; particularly one so indigent as to depend on the parish or town for maintenance." -- Webster.

New-York:
H. DAYTON, 107 NASSAU STREET
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.: DAYTON AND ASHER
1858

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by H. DAYTON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

J. J. Reed, Printer & STEREOTYPER,
43 & 45 Centre Street.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

I HAVE here written a few things concerning the paupers of New England, the land of civilization and religion, but not a THOUSANDTH part of those TRUE stories that may yet be told of them, their sufferings, their neglect, their vice, nor have I told the worst -- JUDGE YE!

I have not dealt in personalities. My actors, such as Squire. Stout, Mr. Haddock, Captain Bunce, etc., represent character merely. Nor have I given in caricature a real locality to the scenes. Unhappily these lie broadcast all over New England.

THE AUTHOR.

NEW ENGLAND'S CHATTELS; OR, LIFE IN THE NORTHERN POOR-HOUSE.

CHAPTER I.
The Story begins with RELICS, where many a one ends.

Among the ragged and miserable creatures in the Crampton poor-house, some of them old and others young, put in and there kept by the town authorities, was a widow of seventy years, a pious old soul, whose name was Charity Prescott. They called her sometimes Mrs. Prescott, or Miss Prescott, the widow Prescott, and the pious old Mrs., Miss, or the widow Prescott. She was poor, but good. Almost everybody loved her, and there were a good many individual Christians and moral people in Crampton who had much preferred she had not gone to the poor-house for her support. However, there she went, and Captain Bunce, the proprietor, held her in some sort of regard. He told Mrs. Bunce that she was probably honest, and well meaning, though broken down in mind, and very simple and childish, and he should grant her "every indulgence."

"Don't be too generous now, Captain Bunce," said his wife, "for you know these are hard times, and we may work ourselves to death for the creatures, without the first red cent or thank'e ma'am from the town, or any soul in it. And as for the lazy, idle coots themselves, the more you do for them, the more you may do; don't you know it, Captain Bunce?"

Captain Bunce knew all about it, he said, as well as she did; knew the whole thing by heart -- knew it perfectly -- but his mind was made up about the widow Prescott, that she should have "every possible indulgence."

Now to hear this honeyed phraseology as it dropped from the mouth of the Captain, one would be sure that Mrs. Prescott would be well taken care of at all events; that she could not feel the want of any thing that lay in Captain Bunce's power to provide for her; that he would not hesitate the fractional part of a minute to do her any service. One would suppose that "every," as he used it, covered a great field of indulgences -- a very great many comforts represented -- almost too many.

Mrs. Prescott was indulged with a single room. Once there had been a large closet to the bed-room on the north side of the kitchen, under the kitchen stairs. This had now been enlarged by building on a small wing -- so called -- about four feet being added, and this enlargement -- nay, the whole affair, closet and appendage -- was assigned to Mrs. Prescott as her room. It had a door that might be fastened; a little window, a narrow, old cot-bed, a piece of a looking-glass, a comb, and a paper curtain. It was a room, some eight by nine feet, quite a commodious little affair. Here in an old ruined bowl she cultivated a geranium. No vicissitudes of her fortunes had robbed her of her Bible. This apartment, with its furniture, and two chairs also, one of them smuggled in by blind Hetty, was, to Mrs. Prescott, one of the Captain's indulgences.

Was she not, reader, a well cared for human being? Consider that she had outlived two or three generations; that her usefulness was gone; that she was hardly known on the church records as a living member; that she was very poor, very dependent -- say, was not the pious old widow Prescott well taken care of? The town taxed itself to support her at five cents a day, and sold her every year at auction, or "contracted," as we say at the North, for her support on these conditions, if others better failed. And here she is, in a ripe old age, cared for in this nice little jewel of a way, i.e., room. Could any thing be more appropriate? Was she not a happy, heaven-ripening saint under these peculiar indulgences and privileges? At any rate, here she is. So we go on and say that here the good old widow passed her days and nights whenever she wished to retire from the common sittings of her companions. Here she put on and off her spectacles, read her Bible, and prayed. Here she meditated on the ways of Providence. Here she occupied herself in the trifling sewings, knittings and darnings. Here she not unfrequently had a visitor of the "House," as they called their own quarters, and gave good counsel to the desponding and reproof to the wayward and vicious. And it was not a rare thing for somebody from, the "Captain's" to run in and chat with her, especially for "blind Hetty," who, in the summer, would stand for an hour at the open window, asking questions and telling stories, and hearing good things and many Bible truths, and comforts for a poor young blind creature such as she. Nor were they lost upon her. No, no. On the blind HETTY? No.

This aged, poverty-stricken widow, had seen a fair supply of misfortune, as we call it, in her life. She was early married to Mr. Samuel Prescott -- afterwards, Deacon Samuel Prescott. She became the mother of eight children, most of whom died before they were twenty years of age, although her eldest son and one of the daughters lived to get married and settle down in comfortable homes near the paternal dwelling. But the daughter died when her second child was born, which in a fortnight followed her, and the husband becoming intemperate died on the eve of another marriage with a dissolute woman. Their first child lived with his grand parents till he was ten years of age, when a cold which he had taken threw him into a fever and soon ended his days. So the family branch in that direction failed. -- The married son had no children, and both husband and wife fell victims to a malignant fever in the neighborhood during the tenth year of their married life.

Deacon Prescott and his wife were nearly the whole time of their married life in mourning. Is it not strange! A married pair always clad, however green and fair the world, sunny and joyous and gay, themselves always, always in mourning! Their little property by degrees failed them in consequence of their repeated trials, and the deacon himself was stricken with paralysis, and lay five years helplessly on his couch. He was not a man of much worldly thrift, though a Christian man of great experience and readiness in divine things. When at last he gave up life, his property was about gone, and his wife left childless, feeble, poor, dependent -- after several years of effort to support herself aided by the charities of the church, and of her friends, cast herself on the town. And here, in the poor-house is Mrs. Prescott, as comfortable as the poor-house customs will allow.

She is a little childish or simple, it is true -- not precisely what she once was, although she has got through a great sum of earthly trouble with much fortitude, and with as much strength of mind as might be expected, left to one in her circumstances. But whatever weakness of mind she may occasionally exhibit, her recollections of Scripture are ever fresh, and on religious matters her conversation is remarkably clear and happy. There's a good deal in old mother Prescott after all. She'll cost the town something yet, even at five cents a day.

The cool mornings and evenings of late October days have come, the trees drop off their autumn-dyed leaves, heavy frosts often crisp the grass, the sheep and fowls begin to seek the warm side of the old buildings where the morning brings up the rays of the sun. And one of these mornings, directly after breakfast, at the poor-house, a breakfast of gruel, potatoes, and poor bread and molasses, served on the old pine table, served with iron spoons, broken knives and forks, on blue-edged and glazed-cracked plates, Mrs. Prescott, in one of her last white cambric caps, with that old-fashioned, motherly, wide, starchless, flapping border, in dark woolen skirt, and apron with long strings -- a neat "fix on" even for herself and her "indulgences," is in her little room, putting it to rights, and then brushing back the gray locks that hang out here and there a fluttering signal of old age, when in comes aunt Dorothy Brinsmade. This old woman, say of sixty-five, appears as usual in a very tattered, ragged rig, carelessly hitched together, and unequally equipoised on her curving frame, shuffling along in old shoes she comes, smoking at a broken pipe, with heavy clouds of strong smoke curling in her wake, and, her advance noted by the odd and even tune of her old crooked staff and crutch on the floor. She comes in humming some strange thing between a march and a psalm tune, as aunt Dorothy is now rather weak-headed -- having got on the slippery side of her life's hill. Twenty years of her time have been penitentiary years, a long flight of years truly; some of them, we would say, passed in poor-houses. She has had, at times, a reputation by no means the best, including in the category, the matters of lying, pilfering and wantonness, although it was always hard to "spot" her in the very matters that this gossip was built on, and at all events, since aunt Dorothy came, eight or ten years ago, to the staff and the crutch, light fingering and frolicsomeness have been of her rather matters of the historic past, than of actual present recurrence. She is rather a good soul among the poor ones of the poor-house, and bears up tolerably well under her day of trial. She is a native of the town, and was once married, but marriage and she had little to say of one another.

"And how does Mrs. Prescott do this morning?" said she, "ai?"

"Drum, drum, drum; dro, de-dro, de-dri, dri dri;
The mountains melt, the seas retire.

"Pretty well, Mrs. Prescott?

"Bubadub -- rubadub, rubadub, dub, dub;
The seas retire -- ."

"I'm tolerable for an old woman, aunt Dorothy, thank ye."

"Wal now -- drum, drum -- that's about all a body can 'spect of life now days. I'm tolerable too -- thanks to a good constitution from Providence, and a merry sort of spirits --

"Drum de drum; drum de drum, drum dro;
Once I thought my mountain strong -- mountain strong,
Drum, drum -- "

"Never mind, aunt Dorothy," interrupted the widow, well knowing her visitor's wandering, loquacious tongue, and endless songs -- so hoping to put her on a new track, "How old do you think I am to-day?" she asked.

"How old! -- drum, drum, drum -- I reckon you are nigh on t' eighty, p'raps eighty-five or ninety -- at any rate, considerable up in life and growing older mighty fast, ai?"

"Why, aunt Dorothy! you don't now -- why I am only seventy-four, that's not so very old, specially on Bible grounds. You know the Bible tells us of persons living -- "

"Three score and ten -- dum de dum -- ," interrupted aunt Dorothy.

"Yes, I know; and four-score -- but they used to live several hundreds, and now-a-days persons often live ninety and a hundred years."

"Not very often. -- drum dru -- "

"Once, aunt Dorothy, people lived to be eight hundred years old. There was Adam, the first man, who lived even till he was nine hundred and thirty years old; and Methuselah, you know, was nine hundred and sixty-nine years old. And there was Noah "

"Pshaw, pshaw, widow Prescott! Them's old folks that's been dead and gone morne a thousand years, when there warn't any poor-houses, and everybody was rich, and all the women rode in coaches, in silk dresses, and never knew when they got old. But I say -- drum, drum, drum -- nobody now-a-days sees such times; nor nobody wants to -- do you. Miss Prescott? They were a great long time ago; folks now-a-days get old when they are fifty or sixty -- drum de drum, drum, drum -- who cares for Adam?"

"But, aunt Dorothy, the Bible's the Bible for all that, and you know we must believe it."

"Sartin! I've been a firm believer of it all my born days."

"It ain't of no consequence, aunt Dorothy, whether we are old or young, if we have a good firm faith in the Bible, and a good hope, for then we are ready to die any time, you know!"

"Sartin! I know it, and that's what I tell them all -- drum, drum, dro."

"You see, aunt Dorothy, ain't your pipe going out?"

"I believe so. (Puff, puff, puff) Now it smokes again."

"Well, as I was going to say, we're in rather straitened circumstances here -- but it might be worse; now we want the Bible to comfort and support us."

"Yes." (Puff, puff, puff. ) "Is this pipe out or not?" (Puff, puff, puff).

"I don't let a day go by without drawing comfort from it."

"It's a great comfort to you." (Puff, puff, puff)

"I find it so. I read very often the words of good old pious David. 'I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.'"

"Is that in the Bible? Now it goes. (Puff, puff, puff).

"'In the Bible,' aunt Dorothy! Indeed it is, every word of it; did not you know that?"

"Well, I guess I did, but I don't know exactly. Drum, drum, drum."

"Precious words they are for us poor souls," said the widow.

"Well, we are poor souls, sure enough. I told Cap'n Bunce I had'nt a whole dress to my back, nor a sheet to my bed, and what do you think he said, ai?"

"I don't know; sometimes he speaks rather quick and ---"

"I know. He told me to go to ---, with my back; he'd give me a new dress when his ship come in from India, and not afore, ai! How do you like that, widow?

D--- him!" said she, with a fury-fire in her face -- a shake of her staff; after which she hummed away as before --

"Drum de drum; drum-de drum, dri, dro;
Rise my soul and stretch thy wing "

"Oh, well, aunt Dorothy -- he's 'quick,' I say -- and it's a trying world; but we must have patience and not return railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing "

"I 'blessed' him," she replied. "I told him he'd go there before I did, or never get his just desarts."

"You did, not now, aunt Dorothy, speak so to him?"

"Yes I did too; and I slamm'd the door in his face. He's an old, hard, grinding hypocrite. Hang him! He's starving us to death, and freezing us to death -- and the other day he kicked old Joe so that he's laid up for all winter, I'll bet you a guinea, as stiff as my cane."

"What made him do that?"

"Nothing. Just because Joe did'nt incline to work out in a rain storm. Nothing."

"And is old Joe really hurt?"

"'Really hurt!' I guess you'd think so."

"And laid up?"

"'Laid up?' Yes, he can't get off the bed. He's half dead; and he says he'd rather die than live any longer, any how."

"It's terrible to die so, aunt Dorothy."

"Who cares?" (Puff, puff, puff).

"Perhaps I can go and comfort him with something out of the Bible -- what do you think, aunt Dorothy?"

"Well now, that's a good notion, Mrs. Prescott, any way. Just do it now. He's a harmless old crittur, we all know, and it won't hurt him if it does him no good, just as it don't me, you know.

"Drum, drum, drum; dri, dro, dri,
Saints and sinners there shall meet -- shall meet,
Dri, dro, dri, drum, dri, dro ---- "

"Well, let us go and see him, right away. Perhaps he'll relish a little good talk if he's so poorly off, any how."

So old aunt Dorothy Brinsmade, with her staff and crutch, hobbled away, and the widow, bending with age, hobbled after. But at the foot of the stairs, up which their way led them to Joe's quarters, they encountered blind Hetty, with a bowl and a plate in her hands. She had evidently been on an errand of kindness to some one, probably old Joe himself -- so it proved.

"So it's you, gal, is it?" said aunt Dorothy.

"Ah, it is Hetty!" said the widow.

"Yes," said the blind girl. "I've been round a little."

"Ah! Hetty," said the widow, "remember the words of the Saviour -- 'I was hungered and ye gave me meat; thirsty and yet gave me drink; naked and ye clothed me.'"

"I have often heard them," said she in reply, "and I wish I could do more as they bid me."

"The Lord bless you, gal, for the good that's in your soul," said the old woman."

"Drum, drum, drum; dro, dro, dro, de-dro;
Life is the time to serve the Lord --- "

"Have you seen old Joe this morning. Miss Hetty?" inquired the widow.

"Yes, I have just been to him with a little breakfast. He is old, and seems to be lame and stiff and sore ---- "

"Seems so, gal! Your father's almost----"

"Hush! aunt Dorothy," said the widow, laying her hand suddenly on her mouth. And in a lower tone she added -- "Don't hurt the poor girl's feelings."

The old woman raised for a moment her flashing eyes, but the fury in them softened as they met those of the pious widow, and fell on the delicate form of the young girl before her, so nearly blind, yet smiling kindly through her tears.

"What were you about to say of my father, aunt Dorothy?" she asked.

"Nothing! nothing, gal," she answered, "only he's not got your gal's heart in him."

"That's true of a great many men," said the widow, softly.

"I'll swear to that!" quickly chimed in the old woman. "There's a score of them to one who've just no heart at all, and old Joe might die for it afore he'd get much pity from -- "

Here again the widow pressed her finger on the old woman's mouth, who gulped down the remainder of the sentence, and the blind girl was left in doubt of her meaning, or in perfect ignorance of it.

"I hope you think old Joe is better now," said the widow to Hetty.

"Yes, he says he is, and he ate my breakfast with a good appetite."

"You've done him a mercy, Miss Hetty, and the Bible says, that he who gives a cup of water to a disciple, in the name of the Lord, shall not lose his reward."

"That's a great promise for so small a favor," said the girl.

"And it's a great Saviour, Hetty, who gives it, remember."

"I know -- I know, you always told me so."

"Yes, don't forget him."

"Is Joe a disciple?" inquired aunt Dorothy, humming her tones, and saying, "'Blest be the tie that binds.'"

"Joe's a poor, innocent sort of a body, a sufferer any way," said the widow, and perhaps the Saviour meant him."

"P'raps so," said aunt Dorothy. "Wall, good-bye, gal; we're going to try to climb these old rotten stairs to see him -- old Mrs. Prescott and I; may he's we can get some comfort in his soul -- from the Bible. Mrs. Prescott, come along -- the old stairs won't break down, I guess, though it would'nt hurt them much, if Cap'n Bunce would make a new sett."

Blind Hetty went off, and escaped hearing the last of the sentence, which might have wounded her.

On a wretched bed, with scarcely clothes to cover him, unshaven, uncombed, unwashed, in an unfinished part of the loft, they found the object of their search. Shall we say the dying man? Yes, truly, Joe was dying. He was feeble and aged; and the cold nights coming on, combined with rougher usage of late than usual, and poor Joe was "getting down" fast. Nobody knew this, least of all did he know it. As for the Captain, he had often seen the paupers sick and feeble, near death, and quite dead; he had also seen them low, and unaccountably weak, but up they came, and were smart again, so that he could not tell "for the life of him" how it would go with any of them when a little sick or ailing; but finding that Joe did not "rally," and having some idea that he might have been instrumental in "upsetting" him, as he termed Joe's illness, he sent word to the doctor to "call round in the course of the day."

Mother Prescott and the old woman approached the bed very quietly on which the sick man lay. The kind little, visit and the nourishing breakfast of Hetty, had really given him much relief. The old man raised his eyes on the new comers, and seeing the pious old widow one of them, he immediately smiled and put out his withered and trembling hand towards her.

But before we advance further with this interview, we desire to introduce the reader a little more plainly to the poor-house itself, and some of its immediate collaterals and surroundings, so we shall see where the paupers live.

CHAPTER II.
IN preparing Statistics of the Population, and tables on Political Economy, we should pay especial attention to what appears on the Surface. As there may have been other persons alive in our places, now below the surface, so there may once have been other mansions where now are found but such as these.

You have seen the palaces, and the marble and elegant brown-stone front houses of the rich, and large, tight, handsome farm-houses, and gentlemen's cottages in city and country, but have you ever seen one of our moral poor-houses, where the paupers live? Here then is one. It is THE POOR-HOUSE of CRAMPTON, a New England town, of three or four thousand inhabitants, an old ruined edifice, having an antique but not an attractive or original model, as it is simply a low one story house with a high, sharp roof. It represents peculiarities common to many an old house. It has been painted, and painted red, perhaps twice or three times painted; but this was a long time ago, and indeed it was a long time ago that any mere casual observer would notice it had ever been thus treated and protected. Once it was a snug, tight, warm, dry dwelling house, full of busy, happy children, the home of some souls now gone to their rest. But it is now an open, cold, decayed affair, shaking and rattling in the winds, and has served as a shelter for swine and cattle, a home of bats, mice, fowls. The shingles are decayed, some are all gone, others very loose, and mould-covered. The wind and storms easily displace them, so that of course the roof is no longer water-tight and rain-proof, and the apartments it covers are seldom otherwise than wet, or damp all round when it rains or the snows melt. But in this case it sometimes happens, as it not unfrequently does in leaky houses, that in one rain, this part of a room drips water, and in another that. Thus the furniture in these rooms acquired a great facility of locomotion, the chairs and beds where these necessary articles of domestic life abounded, moving here and there according to the exigences of the case, with little difficulty in worn and well-smoothed grooves. Good doors, tight clapboards, sound windows once belonged to the house, but now the doors are old and warped, hanging out of true, flaky, creaking on their hinges, swinging over decayed, loose or absent thresholds. The clapboards here and there drop an end for want of a nail. The windows show many a broken pane, many a place filled with rags and papers, or perchance an old weather-beaten hat. The old, ruined, wide-picket fence in front, racked this way and that, the posts being eaten off, and the upper portion settled down into their soft, decayed parts, and wrapt around by the heaving earth and the rank grass and vines, one bracing this and another that way, contrives, nobody ever knew how a fence like this could do so, to hold up against every sort of gale, year in and year out. So the old chimney stands, though now and then an ancient-looking, blackened brick, that has been poising long on the edge of the crumbling pile, falls with a startling sound on the old roof, and half slides off to the ground.

The interior of this house has, it is true, the advantage of the outside covering, be the same more or less, but then there are not wanting disadvantages of its own, that may be fairly said to compensate for that superiority.

The apartments immediately under the roof, for example, are low, damp, as we have said, the ceiling grimy, cracked, or fallen; the walls untidy, heavy lines of discoloration sweep over them in all directions; modern white-washing they "ignore," as we use a term; and paper-hangings, alias wall-paper, well moistened with gum-solvents or paste, have no affinity or adhesiveness for walls already too moist from outside causes. All sorts of ugly pictures, therefore, such as grim, horrid faces of giants; distant and uncertain landscapes; monsters of the animal creation; dark and foreboding storm clouds; yawning chasms, and far-extending, crooked and lawless rivers, paint themselves on the walls before you. The floors creak under your tread, and are full of yawning seams, and these are choked with filth seldom thoroughly brushed away. These rooms, almost never washed and scoured, old, decayed, and rat-eaten, are musty with age and bad use. The rooms, moreover, boast not of solid partitions; but the apartments are separated one from the other by boards poorly matched, or gaping wide, and so with hingeless doors, are as unsafe hiding-places of secret things, as uncomfortable retirements of innocence for sleep, meditation, prayer, or of fatigue for rest, of sickness for quiet, of old age for death. Thus uninviting are the three old chambers under the roof of the poor-house, the most direct way to which is by a very rickety, worn, unsafe flight of stairs, with here and there a step partly or entirely missing. And in these so-called rooms, the furniture, if of varied style, is of little varied value. Here is a crazy nine-penny chair, and there an antiquated, long-out-of-date bedstead, the worse for wear, but wearing little worse by longer use, rough, creaking, dangerous. A greasy, worn sack of straw partially conceals its knotty cord, that makes no promise safely to bear one through the night. Tattered and foul bedding, and sparse at that, lies twisted together there; happy he who feels no need of seeing it unwound. In one apartment, an appearance of a chest meets the eye; in another, a poor, miserably cheap table; a piece of mirror rests on the window sash, and a comb with two or three generations of hair combings and aggregations of all sorts, even nameless aggregations; and broken, brown, glazed earthen ware, of short supply -- these make up the furniture -- these are all, or so nearly all, that it is not worth the time nor ink to write the balance. Carpets? None whatever. Rockers, soft and easy? None. Lounges? No. Paintings and statuettes? All wanting. Rosewood, mahogany, cherry, even stained bureaux? They are not here. Nor are there downy beds, with full, luxuriant pillow, and sheets of purest white, curtains and mirrors, and "balm of a thousand flowers," and costly apparatus for queenly toilette. No! no! no! These are in queen's houses, and in the courts and halls of the great. There is nothing here of beauty, taste or convenience; nothing beyond the simplest calls of necessity. That is the law of these rooms. A dollar would buy all we have shown you. No auctioneer would strike them down but on a special commission.

On these old creaking beds, many a half-starved, ruined, desperate, lost soul has stretched himself for the last time, and quickly given up the ghost, little effort it may be making, or (being made by others) to hinder life's last throbbing in him.

Descending by these trembling stairs to the large, open kitchen, with its low, dark walls, blackened by the smoke of years from the great fire-place, whose wide find ugly flue refuses to float off the heavy waste of sputtering fires beneath it; and blackened by constant adhesions of direful, nauseating clouds of smoke from pipes well filled with coarsest product of the old Dominion's staple -- found in the street, begged here and there, or stolen, as the case might chance, which poor and forsaken wretches, tenants of these quarters, men and women, used to while away the hours, and misery make, if not merry, less miserable; and blackened by its darkened windows, stained by no magic art of pencil, but by the common law of unwashen glass; and blackened by its own reflections, every object in it dark and gloomy -- even the countenance divine of men and women moving there from place to place -- you are in the great common room of the poor-house, where the people throng by day, and where they often rest by night.

Here are the same styles of broken windows, worn and feeble chairs and tables, shattered walls and gaping doors elsewhere on the premises discoverable. And in one corner of the room there is a stout, common, grindy looking bedstead, where some of the tenants fling themselves if the few chairs and benches are occupied by others, or it is the refuge of the weary, the sullen, the sick, or intemperate -- a miserable refuge -- a very poor, ugly bed.

By a large, wide door on the end of the building, egress and ingress to and from this apartment takes place. Then there is the so-called parlor, and front south room, and the north bed-room, rooms once very aptly thus denominated, and put to use in manner corresponding. But now these same apartments are only caricatures of those specifications, haggard dormitories now they are, for haggard beings, otherwise minus dormitories altogether. And all these rooms are, as to cleanliness, furniture, comfort, about as marked and attractive as those already spoken of. The doors of more than one of these apartments are altogether missing -- perhaps in some great necessity of fuel, they were "cast into the fire;" others may want a panel, or a hinge, or latch or key and other fastening, so yielding little protection from outsiders, and giving little place of secrecy.

By twos, threes, fours and sixes, the wasted, ill-sorted, and trembling wretches of this New England poor-house were wont to huddle together in these rooms which we have thus imperfectly described. They were never certain of their respective couches, although certain always if sleep o'ertook them, and the light of day awoke them, to arise, gaunt, hungry, cold, and miserable.

But why should they complain of what was charitably given them by their fellow men, and, especially, when to complain would prove them unmindful of their mercies, and fail to soften the hardship? A labor, this, extravagantly useless.

In respect to raiment, the Crampton paupers enjoyed a monopoly of one in many. Their daily, holiday, and Sunday garments were the same. It made no difference with them what saint's day or jubilee or holiday came round; their garments were always ready for the occasion. You would know a pauper by his raiment as certainly as a state-prison fugitive. It was law at the poor-house to wear out their changes of attire -- to wear them to the last shreds, beyond the shiny thread-bare surface, and the treble patch, and many-colored piecing -- to put them clear through, and then resign them with regret. And they wandered here and there, with and without hats, slouching and broken; bonnets flaring and faded; in worn, large, cast-away shoes and boots, in very awkward and misfitting covering throughout -- wandered about idle, vagrant, mournful relics, many -- yea, most of them. of better days -- prominent candidates for a hastily dug, hastily filled, and an unmarked grave.

Such were the white and black paupers of Crampton; a good town of New England; a land of religion, learning, and refinement; a place of thrift, charity, and improvement.

Yet occasionally it would happen that some forlorn wretch, man or woman, driven into the poor-house by disaster common to many and uncommon to some, with memory of other days yet fresh in him, and love of order yet surviving, would trim both room and bed with such an air of neatness or taste, that, despite all the surroundings of wretchedness and mockery of happiness, there would seem in them much of earthly comfort. And also, among these despairing creatures, sometimes there would be found one who loved the Lord, and who would act the part of reprover unto others in their sins, and to all the miserable and dying be a friend and counsellor. So has Providence ordained that even the wretched and the vile shall receive instruction, warning, persuasion, while they remain on earth, although their condition is unfavorable for the exercises of practical piety, and their wickedness would seem too flagrant for hope.

Mrs. Prescott seemed sent to the poor-house by an over-ruling Hand. Nobody could exactly tell why she was allowed to spend her last days there -- so good, pious, charitable as she was and had been; but there she was. And who knows but she was sent there by the Lord to do good? There were some creatures in that poor-house who had souls! They were a squalid, miserable set of beings; but what they wanted was just what you and I want, and every body else wants -- a thorough soul-cleansing.

So aunt Prescott thought. So aunt Dorothy said and sung.

CHAPTER III.
GENTLEMEN who sell their Cattle, Sheep, and Hogs by Auction, so contrive it that the highest bidder gets them: so they realize. When a lot of Paupers is disposed of at Auction, the town so contrives it that the lowest bidder gets them: so the town realizes.

LET no one suppose that in this description of the poor-house of Crampton, we mean to say it is the property of that town. Not at all. The only property in it the town claims is, to its temporary occupants, the paupers. These belong to it. They are natives of the town -- "town-born," as we say -- or long resident citizens, who have acquired what is called a "legal settlement" there. They may also have become residents, and gained a settlement by owning real estate to the value of three hundred and fifty dollars, (1) voting, and paying taxes on this and other estate, if other, in possession. Fallen into the arms of Poverty, while legally citizens of a town, the paupers have a claim of support from it, and go to the poor-house. But as we have said, not to the town's house, though the town may, and often does, own a town or poor-house. It is the house of a private individual of the place into whose care the town has confided its paupers for a given period -- say a year. The manner of this conveyance? That we shall show you as we proceed; it is an important quality in the act, and has much to do with our story. Here, we simply say, the paupers of the town, be the number more or less, are disposed of at the annual town meeting when the voters assemble to choose their selectmen and other officers for the year, either at public auction to the -- LOWEST BIDDER, or they are more quietly worked off by the selectmen and overseers of the poor, (at the best bargains possible,) at what may be called a private town Sale, selling the whole to one individual, or selling, i.e. (if you please,) boarding, or renting, or farming them out in parcels to several individuals, always at the lowest possible price, that the TOWN may feel their support as little as may be! They are disposed of by the town or its agents in "lots to suit purchasers," or in a body, as it may best suit the town. Free white men, women, and children, educated -- once, if not now respectable -- voters, tax-payers, the ill-tides of fortune bearing them to the town hall, they are "passed upon" as paupers, and sold out -- work, wages, food, clothing, body and soul -- for the year, the town agreeing to pay so much money to him who will take the risk and do the best he can with it -- working them as he likes, clothing them as he deems it pecuniarily safe, and so feeding them likewise; and in the event of sickness and death, quietly, and at such charges as he deems it wise for him, consigning them to the grave.

The successful bidder for this stock of New England pauper-humanity is usually a citizen of the town, who may be in debt, and wish to free himself therefrom -- in itself a laudable desire; he may be a man of small family, to whom a larger responsibility may not be very irksome; he may be a large farmer, who can employ the paupers on his grounds; he may be one who has a large house and little use for it, who, in its wings and garrets, thinks he can accommodate the poor; or he may be one who owns a long, dark, dilapidated, forsaken: tenement, where his father lived or his more distant grandfather, since then used as a storehouse for grain and lumber -- a retreat for the fowls and sheep and swine -- abandoned, otherwise, long years ago; but which, by the aid of broom, and shovel, and soap, and nails, the tightening of floor boards, doors and windows, may be deemed a snug quarters for the town's poor!

The reader will understand that this mode of supporting the paupers is a private enterprise -- a private risk or speculation -- in which the town bears no part, having nothing to hope or fear in it; these exercises of the mind being altogether confined to the individual speculator. The part which the town has in this transaction is the putting up of the property at sale, to be worked off as a temptation to somebody; the moral, conscientious, and religious people voting to give him so many good dollars a year, as he, in a fair competition with other bidders, takes the job for, and risks all its possible contingencies and consequences.

The speculator in this sort of chattels sometimes makes the risk a valuable one, and at other times ruinous to himself. It is very much as the man is as to genius, tact, energy, calculation. Remuneration in poor-house tenantry is got by "grinding the faces of the poor" to a considerable degree of sharpness, and by ciphering down the cost of things till they aggregate in ciphers. A man who would remunerate himself in such risks, must be a man of great faith in the ability of paupers to live on almost nothing, to suffer almost every thing, and to be contented with almost any thing!

There is another feature of this private enterprise in human stocks (!) that it may be well simply to mention. It is, that the poor generally fall into the hands of a class of persons, not over scrupulous on conscientious grounds as to the manner of fulfilling their contract with the town -- a class "hard up" for funds, familiar with profanity, with coarse and vulgar associates; an orderless mode of life, with crowds of talkers and idlers round them -- a class of the more desperate, hardened and intemperate, whose families, wives and children are scolds, rough and overbearing, with whom kind words and gentle demeanor are rare exceptions; or perchance a class of mere and much-loving money-getters -- getters of money "for the last days." The easy, quiet, well-off families -- the gay, the thriving, industrious, conscientious farmers and residents of the town -- have no or little rivalship with this class of speculators; they do not want, they will not bid on it: -- they care not to take "the risk."

Accordingly, it is pretty much all one way with the poor -- a poor way. Speculators have it all pretty much after their own way -- a grinding, way.

Every town in New England has (or a modification of it) one of these pauper institutions; for all New England has its town paupers. In many hundreds of instances at this very day, the town poor are held in the most abject and wretched condition, equaling in every respect all that we say of the Crampton paupers. But we are happy that it is not so in every town. There has been introduced a very great improvement of the system in many localities. Town and country forms, with appropriate dwellings and shops, and a permanent agency to look after the welfare of the poor, have made their state far more comfortable than it once was, and have more nearly allied the institution itself to a benevolent and Christian one, or house of mercy.

Still, there we find the half-clad pauper, the orphan girl, the ignorant boy, the forgotten old member of society and the church. In her old poor-houses are yet found the representatives of hard fortune, and the Witnesses of Christian Neglect.

"What is to be done with the paupers this year?" inquired Captain Bunce of one of the old selectmen.

"This year?"

"Ai."

"Why this year in particular, hey?"

"Because there's a row among some of the folks about disposing them at a fair trade or auction."

"I don't care that for the stir-about that's made!" said the other, snapping his thumb and finger in the air. "We shall dispose of them to suit ourselves. Ain't we the town? Han't we got the majority five to one? A putty idea to knuckle to A., B., and C. to suit their consciences. No, sir! The town is poor, and must look out for itself. Sell the paupers, I say, to the lowest man; and that man, I see, Captain, is just yourself. Ha! Ha! Ai, Captain? Eh?"

CHAPTER IV.
CAPTAIN Isaac Bunce, Mrs. Bunce, all the Bunces, more especially the Captain, who has a moral and religious standard. His merciful convictions have a triumphal ascendency over his daily overt practice, and rule him uncommonly well disposed.

IN the old weather-beaten and comfortless edifice we have described standing plump up by the stage-road in the valley of the great Slip-Slop Creek, with a ridge of high hills close in the rear, and long, rolling mounds and some hills in front, and wide-spreading farms to the south and east, were gathered the paupers of the town of Crampton, numbering about fifteen persons. Besides these, there were a few other individuals in the town not yet absolutely needy, living at present with friends or relatives, receiving each a small allowance, say from two to five dollars a year, which was paid by the town to their friends who took care of them, and in consideration whereof they furnished them a little more kindlily an abode at their own homes, but usually "homes" that another death in the family, another paralysis, a foreclosure of a mortgage, or possibly the next twelve-month ebbings of compassion, would entirely break up -- happily for the town if it did not add two instead of one to the number of its actual paupers.

This poor-house, a sort of half-habitable looking edifice, overshadowed by the old apple trees of the orchard that had grown strong, great heavy trees, some of them fifty, sixty, or even seventy years old, an orchard of them in the rear where the swine rooted, the geese gabbled, the calves and lambs frolicked, the horses rolled, and bullocks pawed the earth and bellowed, large famous old trees with their roots wound among the rocks, and their arms stretching far out, here and there intertwining, and among them hens and turkies finding safe refuge from nightly prowling foxes. Sometimes, from its enormous, ruined chimney lazily rolled off the smoke indicating life within; at other times, in the warm summer, its windows were thrown open, and human faces thrust themselves out into human view; and again, its crazy front door, beneath the old untrimmed lilacs, (where was there ever an old country ruin that had no lilac bushes at its portals?) was swung wide on its rusty hinges; and perchance two or three human beings filled the entrance, or lounged lazily on its threshold. Near the east end of the house a babbling and rapid rivulet passed, that came off the hills and through the woods, a clear sparkling stream tumbling over the rocks and gurgling through the walls and meandering through the pastures and meadows to the Slip-Slop Creek. The water was pure, soft, abundant, one of the natural blessings of the poor. They sometimes washed their clothes in it, and occasionally their faces, hands, and feet.

Another large, red, two-story, sharp-roofed house, no wise trim and neat, and comfortable looking and attractive, stood within hailing distance on the north side of the poor-house. This, with its wide drive-way to the yard and sheds, and huge barn in the rear, was the dwelling-house of Captain Isaac Bunce, owner of the poor-house and keeper of the paupers. Separated from the poor-house by a high board fence, yet communicating with it through a gate, it represented property, bustling activity, and independence. In the wide yard around the house there were sheds -- a long, low line of dark sheds for housing wood, for sheltering wagons and carts, for storing ploughs, and barrows, and scrapers, and all the utensils and apparatus of the farm. And the yard was filled with wood, chips, old fence rails, broken ploughs, carts, and other instruments, utensils, and implements of work-life, gone somewhat or totally to decay. And there were sheds around the barn, flanking it on this side and that, where the uneasy, wandering cattle lounged, going in and coming out as they listed, or the stiffer horn of some old ox made moving less a choice than a necessity. And here too were the poultry and the calves, and the sheep and lambs.

In this broad yard, the paupers, if any were active and able-bodied, were "held to service," some in making, others in gathering chips, others still in sentinel duty watching the romping pigs and calves. Of the females, work of various kinds was oft demanded in the house, mopping, scrubbing, washing clothes, making beds, sweeping, etc. Half of every sunny day there might be seen here and there crouched down on the warm side of a shed, or a wood-pile, among loose barrels, or cart-wheels, or perchance stretched out on a pile of boards, or rails, some feeble, aged person, almost done with earth, yet yearning for its warmth and sunshine; or sad and melancholy and drooping human forms passed here and there on the grounds -- high and hilarious shoutings, voices in merry story tellings and railleries, laughter that maketh glad the hearts from the large dwelling where were busy women, or jovial men, reposing from work or cheerful from wine, falling on their ears, not as shoutings and voices and laughter of encouragement, not as from circles of loving children, not as sympathetic with sorrow and friendlessness, nor as attracting to its circle the lonely and broken-hearted -- not as these, oh! no, no.

Men and women shouted there over their own free jests, in forgetfulness of the sorrow that was weighing down the poor.

For five successive years Captain Bunce had kept the poor of Crampton; it seeming to be the opinion of a majority of the town that his terms were easier for them than any that others proposed, and his accommodations, on the whole, the best for the poor that could be had. It is true that some of the citizens of Crampton were disinclined to go with the majority, and urged a different mode and system of supporting the poor. They were, however, a small minority, and by most regarded and treated derisively, as fanatics or squanderers of the town treasury, or possibly with patronizing civility. Other individuals there were who had a strong desire for a portion of the "loaves and fishes" -- i.e., to share the spoils in the disposition of the poor at a cash valuation. Hence they were competitors for the job, risk, or duty, with the Captain and with one another.

But party politics, diplomatic shrewdness, lobby button-pulling, and the wishes of the majority all favored the Captain, and his bids prevailed.

In person, Captain Bunce was a large, florid-looking man, nearly six feet in height, with broad shoulders, long, stout arms, and hard hands. He was careless of dress, rough and ready in his manners. He was not usually and wantonly profane, but easily and often fell into the practice. In his orders, he was rather loud and dictatorial; swaggering in his talk; always making a good story better by recapitulation; professing great familiarity with the details of all sorts of business; a knowledge of the value of property, real and personal; a positive love of hard work for work's sake; and an acquaintance with human nature that enabled him to draw out of every body around him more work than any other man under the same circumstances.

Notwithstanding he seemed always well supplied with funds, he was one of a class ever in debt. His bills against the town had been sometimes as high as eight hundred dollars a year; but competition is the ruin of high prices, and it had run the Captain down to six hundred -- an income still that his rivals deemed almost the same as clear gain, and that he also did not underrate in his own bosom's thoughts. None knew better than he that the ready first cost of provisions for the paupers simply, was very trifling. It was absolutely and scripturally necessary that the Captain should provide for his own household; and as this was rather large, a little over -- a very little extra supply of provisions -- would make an abundance of fare "for all the poor folks that Crampton ever got together" -- i.e., from the over-plus, ibid the leavings. Hence, from a certain point of necessary charges any way, (the Captain figured it,) the paupers' food would be about the same to him in the actual deficit of his ways and means, as the true value of two decimals themselves in a fractional place where the units and tens were wanting, and the whole representing -- a cipher!

Although the nominal guardian of the poor of the town, which implied some benevolence of feeling, he really "cared not for the poor," except in so far as he carried "the bag" by which they, in being supported, supported him. As with every other individual who, at any given time, had been put in charge of the paupers, it was for the sake of making money he kept them a single day. Boasting of his benevolence, and of a merciful and humane treatment of his poor dependents, the treatment after all was such as the weight of "the bag" demonstrated expedient. Of course!

The Captain farmed a good many acres, heavily under mortgage; and as far as they were able, sometimes exceeding their ability, he compelled the paupers to lend him their assistance. He held this to be a proof of his humanity and benevolence, inasmuch as they being somewhat in years; somewhat stiff and cold; somewhat decrepid; the blood sluggish and low, with little ambition or motive to execution, they were greatly inclined to inaction, and to a dull, monotonous, sleepy sort of life, the indulgence of which was bad -- very; productive of distempers, fevers, agues, and that sort. He would frequently, therefore, counsel them to "stir" themselves, to "take the air," to "shake off melancholy," and "drowsiness," and "gloomy recollections" of the past.

"It is better for you," said he, "better for you 'by half,' to be busy at some close, steady employment, from morning till night, than to sit here moping."

With this merciful and humane view of his duty, Captain Bunce "stirred" up the poor-house community every day with directions to do this and that job of work, to hire which done would have been expensive, and altogether useless with so much unemployed material on hand -- his good intentions sometimes failing, it is true, and the benefit coming short, as the individuals in question, and that not unfrequently, were found more feeble in body than the given employment contemplated, per-adventure actually on the sick list, a bed. But sickness and disappointment are human inconveniences.

This mercy in the direction the Captain gave it, filled a very large field -- an almost boundless one. It contributed very much, in his opinion, to realize a joyful reunion of both ends of the financial year, and thus secure to the paupers themselves the continuous advantages of his roomy and desirable quarters for their home. We ought not to forget it, and will say while it is in mind, that Captain Bunce was by his works a religious man. He attended church, rented a good slip, and when any of the paupers died he sent word religiously and promptly to the minister to lose no time in attending the funeral obsequies. Perhaps there was not one man in the town who entertained a more vivid conception of -- his own personal integrity, independence, morality, mercy, humanity, diligence, thrift, popularity with all classes of citizens, and reverence for religion than Captain Bunce.

But standards of personal excellence are seldom lived up to, and still more rare is it that we see them exceeded. This was the case with the Captain. He formed, notwithstanding every good thing about him, no exception to the rule -- certainly he did no more than equal his. Disguise the matter as he would in his own eye, to others it was palpable that he wore a rum face, managed his affairs loosely, blustered and stewed and swaggered, instead of diligently and successfully minding his proper business, while his humanity and mercy, as well as all the moral qualities of which he boasted a large surplus, were in reality satellites of his extreme selfishness. A very great and wide difference of opinion this, from that which he entertained, and teaching all of us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought!

However, Captain Bunce had a great many mouths to feed; and this was a trial of his disposition -- of his moral qualities not only, but of his calculations -- his mental qualities. He seemed to have imposed on him directly, a double share of trial, and this required in him all the virtues that, in a hasty enumeration of personal qualities, he accorded to himself.

Annually on the town books of Crampton -- a town of three or four thousand persons -- there was a good average of fifteen paupers. This number, in full, now looked up to Captain Bunce every day of their successive three hundred and sixty-five, for all they had!

In the Bunce family proper, beside the Captain, there was Mrs. Bunce. She was a stout, healthy woman, and the mother of four living children grown up, viz.: Dick and Elisha, Betsey and Henrietta; and beside these, there was a hired man and a servant girl. These were the mouths to feed daily, and the Captain was put hard up to meet the demand; but his heart did not fail him at all as long as brandy and water could be had, and six or seven hundred dollars a year for the paupers found their way to his pockets.

And yet, sublunary calculations and sublunary possessions are closely allied to sublunary disappointments; and the Captain himself could not escape the operation of their causes and effects. The town paupers were beginning to slip through his fingers, and his farm and all that he possessed through his hands. For Mrs. Bunce, though a stout, healthy woman in the common use of language, was rather a red-faced woman, and fond of cider, ale, wine, and all the minor beverages proper for a woman to be fond of; and the two Bunce boys, Dick and Elisha, had a fondness for brandy and cigars; and Dick, the elder, had a cough similar to one that carried off his elder brother Hallowell. Betsey Bunce was a coarse sort of a girl, strong for service -- a stout, noisy, bold girl, engaged to marry Sam Durkee, the butcher. Henrietta, the youngest child, was now seventeen -- a sweet-tempered, pale, good girl, gentle and kind, but unfortunately, nearly blind. When ten years of age, she lost an eye by the carelessness of her brother Elisha, then twelve years old. The boy held in his hand a large bow and arrow, and was showing Hetty his skill in shooting. At length, pointing his arrow in mere play at his sister, with the bow drawn tightly up, by accident the arrow escaped, and struck the right eye of the poor child, and destroyed it. The nerve of the other was so much affected through sympathy, that she was nearly blind ever after. She could, however, read a little, sew a little, knit, and do errands and light work about house. But Hetty was a child of misfortune; and it seemed as if her days would be few on earth, and that she would always be a source of anxiety, trouble, and expense to her parents -- one, indeed, on whom they could place no reliance for help in the times of their own distress. Parents often say of lame Willie and blind Hetty, "we can't expect from them any help or comfort: alas! what a misfortune to us and them." This is, fortunately, a great mistake. Lame Willie and blind Hetty often are lamed and blinded by Heaven for us.

It was into the care of Captain Isaac Bunce and his amiable family that the poor of Crampton were confided by the authorities. They placed them with him mainly on these two considerations -- First, That he had bid for them lower than any other of the respectable, moral and humane citizens of the town. Second, Because he was deemed responsible to fulfil his contract. They did not ask him where or how he would keep them, "provided always" that they were "suitably" kept, and in such a manner as "to save the town harmless" of any further cost than what the contract specified. Of this they were morally certain that neither he nor any other of the citizens of Crampton could be expected to keep them in his own house unless perfectly convenient, and absolutely necessary for the want of other accommodations. Nor would he of course keep them in the same rooms and beds that he appropriated to his own family, and the relatives and occasional visitors of the family.

The stipulation was not of this sort, although the tender mercies of the town authorities were so actively in exercise that they contracted in the name of mercy and justice, which sometimes go sweetly together, of humanity and religion, (which sometimes have kissed each other,) such at least as Captain Bunce immortalized in his daily practice towards the paupers, for the "suitable" keeping of the unfortunates in his charge. "Suitable" keeping of town paupers means, in a manner that hardly any other human being would endure, i.e., in a very unsuitable way for persons who have money and are respectably, well off. This done, for example, by Captain Bunce, and the town authorities, unless sent for, rarely visited the quarters of the poor, nor tarried long when they did. Captain Bunce courted no investigation of his private practice of town officials, nor did he care especially that curious, prying, jealous eyes should examine his premises, and spy out his management. Feeling wholly competent to manage his own concerns, what possible advantage was it to him that one and another person of the town should visit his "works" and volunteer advice? The overseers rather liked this independent spirit, and the town as a whole, felicitated itself in having the right sort of a man to take on his shoulders the whole charge of the pauper family. Seldom do we find two separate interests so nicely balanced as were these of the town and of Captain Bunce, and working so harmoniously to a common end.

As our friend the Captain did not intend to keep, shelter, feed and clothe the paupers in his own house, "where," it may be asked by some, "where did he intend to keep them?" To be sure, in the poor-house, so-called, or rather in the old house we have described, and which, a great while ago, had been inhabited by the ancestors of the Bunce family, thus making the genealogical structure itself one of uncommon respectability.

"Why," said Captain Bunce. "my father was born in this very house! Yes, indeed, he was. And my grandfather lived here forty years. It is a most venerable, remarkable, extraordinary old house."

"It is indeed," said Bill, the colored man, "it is as old as the hills."

But the true character of such old forsaken tenements, the floor of the kitchen over the cellar trembling with its own weight, who does not know?

Here then the poor folks of Crampton had their home. They were not confined there as to a penitentiary or jail. They roamed about here and there, making neighborhood excursions, went to the Captain's kitchen and barn, were sent of errands, worked in the fields, etc., and occasionally some of them went away to beg or steal, or in idle curiosity roved off and were gone some days. But whatever they did, wheresoever they roamed, they never arose out of their condition of paupers, dependent, broken down, forgotten, doomed paupers! They never found themselves in a situation that did not forcibly remind them of their poverty, that great ill of human life, that cause of much sinning, that blight on human happiness and hope, that dimmer even of heaven's own glorious light. Their rooms, their raiment, their food, their means of enjoyment, their field of industry, their circle of friends and associates, the prayers and exhortations to which they listened, the portions of the gospel selected for their benefit, all, all reminded them that they were the poverty-stricken ones of the earth; that their fellow-men regarded them as useless, thriftless, wasteful consumers, with but one scene in the play of life unacted, viz. -- the death scene!

CHAPTER V.
JOE HARNDEN and his visitors. "When visits and calls are made they should be civil and short. Do not bore a friend to death by the length of your civility, but cut it short off before he shall even begin to wish you hadn't called at all.

"AND how do you feel to-day, Mr. Harnden?" said the pious old widow with a very kind tone of voice, and taking him by his extended hand.

"Joe's very sick," said he, "very sick, Mrs. Prescott, but he's on the mending order now, and will be up again by to-morrow or next day."

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy, you know," said she. "That's a precious word of consolation, Joe. It means that if we have some troubles and sorrows here, we shall get the better of them hereafter, in the help of the Lord."

"My troubles, Mrs. Prescott," said the old man, "my troubles have come on me by my own doing, and it sort of strikes me that the Bible comfort isn't meant of such sinners; it's meant for better sort of persons than deserve to die in the poor-house."

"Oh! la sus, Joe," said the old woman Brinsmade, "then what's the chance for me and half of us? Ye see, Joe, we must all consider there's some hope. Now your'n, and mine, may he's small. But -- drum, drum, drum -- a little's better than none at all -- ain't it so -- Miss Prescutt?"

"The Saviour of the world says, 'I am come to seek and to save them that are lost.' 'I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' 'Go ye out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, (meaning poor folks, you know? "Yes," said aunt Dorothy, 'that my house may be filled.'"

"And do you really reckon, Mrs. Prescott," inquired the sick man, "that a poor fellow like me, or any body like us, might have been meant by that sort of merciful language?"

"Oh, I know it, Joe! It is all a perfect revelation of pity, the gospel -- meant for the greatest of all sufferers, poor, and ignorant, and dying."

"Wall, I'll be hanged if I don't wish it might be true," he replied, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Oh, it's all true, Joe," said aunt Dorothy, "I'm a firm believer in it, and it'll do you a heap of good to believe it too."

"Yes," said the widow, "a great deal, for we read, 'He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, neither shall there be any more sorrow nor pain, and they shall be forever with the Lord, and your sins and iniquities will I remember no more forever.'"

"That's a very good, and seems like a gracious promise," said the poor creature.

"Oh, it is, it has a great deal of comfort in it."

"I've been a great rebel sinner," said the man, "a swearer, a drinker, gambler, and all that's bad; but of late years I've thought on my ways some, and getting old I've left off some of my bad ways, but not from an understanding mind. Now I think I see where the truth is, if I can only get hold of it."

"You do, you can, sartain," said aunt Dorothy, "it is as plain as daylight. Don't put it off."

"If you cast yourself on the Saviour for salvation, and do not cling to your own righteousness -- "

"No, I throw that away, it's about as good as these bed-quilts -- "

"A hit, I s---!" cried aunt Dorothy, throwing her hands into the air in a perfect transport of feeling.

"Mercy on us! What do you mean, aunt Dorothy, to talk so?" said the offended widow, and the old dying Joe rolled his eyes on her mournfully enough.

"Well, it's no use fretting," said she, "I only spoke in earnest, not in wickedness, so help me; ah! now, I say, Joe, we are mighty glad you've got rid of your own righteousness, and begin to see the right sort -- drum, drum, drum."

"Joe," said the widow, stooping down to his pillow, and speaking in a low voice, "the Saviour says, 'He that Cometh unto me shall in no wise be cast out.' Now you must turn your mind to him and believe on him as your own suffering Saviour, dying on the tree, to save you. Then you must try to repent of all your sins, and cast yourself just as you are, by faith, upon the Lord. He'll accept you then, and it'll be just like the Prodigal Son going home to his father. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think I do, a little," said he.

"'Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.'"

After a few moments the invalid raised his eyes to her's and said, "It seems to me, if I could only pray -- but it's of little use to think of it -- I don't know how to. Can anybody pray for old Joe in his time of need?"

"Yes," said she, "I'll pray for you myself. Aunt Dorothy, let us kneel down and pray for him. He's feeling the need of it, I know."

Aunt Dorothy required no second asking, and then they kneeled down their aged limbs, poor, helpless sinners as they were, and while Joe shut his eyes and moaned a true, penitent groan, the pious old lady offered her humble and earnest petition to the Saviour in his behalf. She was a praying saint, doubtless, and many an old pauper under that roof had heard her prayers in similar circumstances, and acknowledged her great kindness. So the good widow, even in her old age and weakness, was helpful to the poor ones there, in guiding them out of their dark and sinful paths into the light and pleasant ways of the Lord.

Poor Joe had been a merchant. But the reverses of fortune and the allurements of the cup, long ago impoverished him, and without a living relative near enough of kin to care for him, he became a pauper, shattered and weak of intellect, and a miserable wreck of humanity every way -- a great change indeed from the gay and active young man of business, Mr. Joseph Harnden, of New York, merchant in Broadway. So it is with the poor of the north frequently. They are men who have been in a far better condition, and to all appearances, far enough from the poor-house. But no man knows what is before him in life, especially if he be addicted to any vice. It is very certain that even yet many a proud speculator, many a lady in silks, many a blushing maiden, many a hard-working laborer, will end his days among the paupers, as poor and miserable as any of whom we are now writing -- because every antecedent cause of poverty, extravagance, intemperance, pride, licentiousness, dishonesty, anger, revenge, hatred, violence, sickness, pestilence, conflagration and famine, now preys on the vitals of society very much as it has hitherto done.

But we return to poor dying Harnden. The prayers and exhortations of the aged widow, good, old, pious, heaven-minded saint, seemed to have a very happy effect on his mind, and he said that whether he "dropped off" or "came up," he hoped it would be well with him; and in this most heartily joined aunt Dorothy, whose goodness was of that uncertain, impulsive nature, that neither she nor any one else knew in what direction her mind and heart would drive her. She went with the circumstances around her, now religiously inclined, and anon moving on with the world. Her's was not the best model of piety, but as her pretentions were not very high, her influence was correspondingly trifling. Joe Harnden, notwithstanding his mind was weak, gave what he had apparently with a full heart to the Lord, and rejoiced in the promise of the gospel.

"There is one thing I want to know, Joe Harnden," said aunt Dorothy, "and that is, if old Cap'n Bunce did'nt hit you a hard kick in the back that made you lame?"

"Cap'n Bunce did not kick me -- "

"He did, you lie, Joe Harnden! You know he did." This was uttered so quickly that the widow could not prevent it. Joe groaned on his bed, and tears trickled down his cheek. The old woman began her

"Drum, drum, drum,
Behold the aged sinner goes --
Drum, drum, drum, dro, dri, dro, dri,
Laden with guilt and --
Drum, drum, drum."

"No," said Joe, partly turning in his bed, and fastening his eyes on her, "Cap'n Bunce gave me a punch with his hand, but I told a falsehood when I said he kicked me. If it were the last word I ever uttered, I would say Cap'n Bunce did not kick me."

With his eyes still fastened on her, the old pauper sank back on his couch, a ghastly expression came over his face, he trembled slightly, gave a dying groan, and as the widow hurried to his relief, drew his last breath.

"Joe!" cried a voice from below: no answer. "Joe, I say!" still no answer. "Joe Harnden, have you got no ears, I say!"

But no answer was returned; only widow Prescott, moving on tip-toe to the head of the stairs, beckoned Captain Bunce to come up. Suddenly the Captain felt a shudder creeping all over him, as though something awfully serious had occurred. Stepping softly up three or four stairs towards her, he saw beyond, old aunt Dorothy, standing like a statue, with both hands stretched above her head, and her eyes riveted on the bed. But as the blood began to run cold in his veins, the widow stooped down and whispered through her fingers, "JOE'S GONE!"

"Good heavens! Mrs. Prescott----"

"Just breathed his last!"

The Captain reeled and grew dizzy on the stairs. But directly a voice from the door opening out below, called him to himself."

"Captin Bunce! Captin Bunce! he's come -- the doctor's here!"

"Hurry him up, then, for God's sake, JIMS! Why in the world haven't you hurried along, hey? Here's old Joe dying, and nobody to bleed him."

"I guess there arn't much blood in him," cried Jim. "More likely his blood's frized up into icicles. I reckon you'd do better to sweat him."

Under ordinary circumstances. Captain Bunce would have knocked the boy down for his impudence; but now he paid no attention to him. He hurried the doctor upstairs, who approached the bed.

Putting his ear to the mouth of the dead man, and feeling his pulse carefully for a moment, he turned to the Captain, who stood on the stairs within three or four steps of the top. -- "He's gone," said he.

"Dead!" exclaimed the Captain.

"As lead," replied the Doctor, "He's done!"

"JIMS!" said the Captain, going down with a very white face, and trembling in spite of himself, "tell the people that Joe Harnden's dead, and will be buried tomorrow."

Harnden's last visitor was death.

CHAPTER VI.
"We've fifteen poor folks, lacking the last death -- Joe Harnden." -- Squire Ben Stoufs Remark. It is well to keep the Population intact, to know exactly what to say when the Government gets in readiness for the National Census. A correct Census is the glory of an Administration.

ONE important personage in Crampton was Benjamin Stout, Esquire -- or Squire Ben Stout; otherwise, and more universally, called Squire Ben. He was always head man in town affairs, and a capital manager of the public interests. Squire Ben was fat and easy. He could smoke, drink ale, and brandy as a slight change. He was a good joker, and a generous, hospitable, gentlemanly liver. First selectman of the town, he wielded a large influence, and enjoyed in that office, as his colleagues and coadjutors, Mr. Jonas Savage and Mr. George Haddock.

Now Stout and Savage went in on the same ticket; Haddock, on the opposition ticket, Haddock's party was not a large one, though respectable men belonged to it. Policy led the democratic majority, who could make a clean sweep of every thing in Crampton, to put in Haddock. There were some agitating matters always coming up in town affairs, and the minority felt easier and behaved better if they had a voice; even though it were but as one to three or five, in the town business.

In relation to the town paupers, these men were classified thus: Stout and Savage for the town; Haddock for the paupers. Now S. and S. really claimed that they were for the paupers -- i.e., for their best good; and they put Haddock down as a fanatic. We shall see the ideas which all these gentlemen entertained on the subject, as well as their ideas in general, on morals, education, benevolence, crop out here and there in the progress of our story.

Although differences of opinion were entertained in the town, as to the great question of supporting the poor, and sundry hints were floating here and there that the present manner was wanting in mercy and kindness, and behind the age, yet the town at large was united in sustaining the system, and felt safe as long as Squire Ben and Savage were a majority of the Board. And they said the time had not yet come to alter a policy as old as "seventy-six."

Jonas Savage, though a man of some business talent, was a coarse, bold, swaggering fellow. He was ignorant and overbearing. Really one of those uncultivated men that, while they know a good deal, are sharp, exert an influence, and can't be got rid of, you feel uncomfortable when they are about. Savage made his mark on every thing he took up. The town knew he was trustworthy for them. He went, on all occasions, for "retrenchment." Mr. Savage's idea of town expenses was, that they were always unnecessarily high, and he maintained as his theory, and promulgated the same in loud, long, and windy speeches at town-meetings, that by strict economy at least two per cent, of the taxes might be struck off. Esq. Ben. Stout was for retrenchment, but he also earnestly advocated paying up, and a thorough collecting of the taxes, and liquidating all the town charges. Mr. Haddock was earnest in advocating improvements, and for a tax sufficient to meet every needed reform in the community, and for such laws and doings as were consistent and honorable.

The town business requires attention. The selectmen must meet together and talk it up very often. So our Crampton officials often met and discussed the town affairs, town policy, and town interests. They sometimes grew rather heated in argument, especially when the rival views and parties came in decided collision. By appointment, we find the three gentlemen already introduced to the reader, assembled one afternoon at the office of Squire Ben Stout. It happened that Savage arrived a few minutes before Mr. Haddock, and was very warmly greeted by his superior, Squire Ben.

"Did you know," said he, "I was just thinking over the matter -- a little -- and it struck me, that our last contract for the poor wasn't bad, after all. Savage, eh?"

"I don't know," said the other, rather doggedly.

"Why, you see, you see, Savage; here it is, six hundred dollars -- that's all, every cent -- it ain't six fifty, or seventy-five, nor is it seven hundred! Don't you see the point, eh?"

"Oh! hang it, Squire, I know all that; yes, I know it's but six hundred; and yet I, that's enough!"

Squire Ben drew a long breath as Savage struck his hand smartly on the old law book that lay open on the table before him, and looked him straight in the eye. Finally he said,

"Well, it strikes me we have it about as low as it will bear this year, eh? Isn't it low for the present time. Savage? Don't it strike you so, eh?"

"Why, tolerably, tolerably, but I don't think we ca ever get it down too low; the fact is, the taxes are unconscionably high and hard. But if the Captain must have six hundred, we can't help it, I 'spose. They've got to have a living, somehow. They're a trouble, and an expensive sett of good-for-nothings. Hang 'em, say I."

"As for me," said the Squire, "I had rather not have the responsibility of contracting for them. The town had better do it at the annual meeting, when they are all there, you know?"

"Altogether," said Savage, "this milk and water way, just to avoid selling them at auction, don't suit me; it's just no way at all. Put them right up in a lot, and down they go to somebody, probably fifty dollars cheaper than when we contract in this manner."

"It is the best way said the Squire, with firmness unusual. "I go for it with all my heart."

"We could manage it easy enough," said Savage, "if it was not for these croaking fanatics, like Haddock and Phillips. They go so unmercifully for the 'Gospel,' as they call it, that common sense and hard times stand a mighty poor chance, I tell you."

"Ha! ha! ha! Savage, you have struck out the thing just as it is. They are queer."

"Queer!"

"Ai; that is, they -- are -- singular, you see."

"Singular! They are confounded bores and botheration."

Now Squire Ben always got along by carefully picking his way and feeling of men. Savage was blunt, and came right out. He frequently "blew up" the Squire for his caution; and he would have done it now, only the whole current of conversation was changed by the sudden arrival of Haddock himself -- a stout, handsome, gentlemanly man -- who carried a cane, was easy in his manners, frank and self-possessed. Mr. Haddock knew a good deal of society in general, and of his colleagues in particular. He was judicious withal, and very hard to get up a quarrel with, or to really despise and insult. As for the Squire, he greeted him very cordially, and made him take his own chair.

"Yes, of course, friend Haddock, I always do so; keep it, keep it. We are glad to see you."

"Thank you, sir; I am glad to return the compliment."

"How are you?" said Savage, reaching out his hand.

"Very well, indeed. How is your own health, sir?"

"First rate; sound as a nut," said the second selectman.

"I suppose, gentlemen, you are getting on rapidly with business?"

"Why, Haddock!" exclaimed the Squire; "we have done nothing -- nothing. We were just looking out for you, hoping you'd be on hand to help us. We are none too many, altogether, to manage this town's affairs. I am getting old and clumsy. Haddock. I can't do much, any how. But you and Savage, now, are just in the prime of life. Yes, yes -- well, so it is. But -- er -- where were we. Savage? What business were we on when Haddock came in? Let's see -- er -- ah! ai! -- I have it! You see it strikes us, Haddock, in regard to the taxes, that the collector is dilatory, and ought to be pricked up. What do you think?"

Mr. Haddock wasn't posted up, he said.

"How can we get on with town affairs, if the collector fails to bring in the money?"

"That is every body's honest opinion," said Savage. "Now I reckon that whereas we ought to have eighteen hundred dollars, we shall fall short near to seventeen. We want to know about it -- must know. We have a world of money to make out. There's the extra expenses, roads to be repaired injured by the great rain, cost of Rundel's old horse that fell through the Little Bear's Bridge, and extra funerals of the paupers that Buuce says the town ought to pay for: all these call for close calculation. We can't go headlong any longer. We must bring up somewhere; and I think it is as well to do it now as by-and-bye, when we've got to.'"

"Just so," said Squire Ben. "It won't do to run the town in debt. We must get the town out of debt, then we can go on."

"That's it, that's it!" said Savage. "The town won't hear to any extra expenses."

"No, gentlemen, I agree with you," said Mr. Haddock "The town don't wish a large, heavy bill brought in beyond the money raised. But the town is willing to take just views of its own responsibilities, and guard against future expenses and contingencies, by timely provision. As, for example, it is better that the Little Bear Bridge should be built of stone, with an arch, though it should cost fifty dollars more, than of wood, with string-pieces and plank."

"Well, now, I differ from that idea," said Savage. "The town can't afford to spend fifty dollars here and a hundred there, just for improvements. The Little Bear's Bridge can be put up in good, thorough shape for a hundred and fifty dollars. And who will give a job to the masons, and saddle a bill on the town of two hundred, just to have a stone arch there instead of solid old-fashioned timbers? For my part, I'm satisfied with a plank bridge. It's good enough, if stone is better. What do you say, Squire?"

"I should think, on the whole, that the town would be afraid -- under the circumstances of so many extras and abatements -- to build of stone. I think we must have the plank bridge, Mr. Haddock, for the town is in honor bound to pay every thing that's lawful, and we must consult for the honor of the town."

"Yes," said Mr. Haddock. "But you recollect the Little Bear Bridge has been swept off twice in five years, besides this wearing out of the plank, while the Slip-Slop Bridge of stone has stood without any repairs, or a cent of cost, ten years already."

"True enough!" said Savage. "But the Slip-Slop cost the town a deal of cash, and made a mighty grumbling. Folks said if town money was to be squandered in that way, every body would have to pawn his farm to pay taxes; so they turned out the selectmen, you know, and put in a new sett."

"That's about as it was, to be sure," said the Squire.

"Yes, and Haddock knows it," said Mr. Savage, "Ha! ha!"

"But that is not the whole of the story," replied he. "I remember that when the '39 freshet swept all the bridges off but the arch-bridge of the Slip-Slop, and cost the town an extra one per cent. tax, every body was satisfied, and said it was money well laid out."

"Oh! that was merely on the excitement of the moment," replied Savage. "The town has never voted any stone bridges since."

"No, nor is it likely to, as long as some of the influential tax payers go dead against it," said Haddock. "But every body knows that it is true economy to do things well, when they are done."

"I go in for that," said Squire Ben, "and so does Savage -- I dare say -- only -- that is -- Savage is sharp and sees a long way ahead, hey, Savage?"

"Why, as for that, I ain't proud of myself, by no means. But I do hold that a sixpence saved is sixpence earned."

"Ha! ha! ha! I thought so," was the merry reply of the Squire.

"There are two ways to save sixpences," said Mr. Haddock, who very well knew that it was two to one in all the talk of this Board, and consequently kept his temper whatever provocation might seem calculated to inflame it. "One other way is so to spend sixpences, that they will not need spending again very soon."

"Oh, pshaw! pshaw! Haddock, you're always for doing things for the town, just as you build your own stone walls. You don't care what money it takes, if the work will only stand. Now towns are different from individuals, you see. A man can do as he pleases with his own matters, but the town must manage just to keep along from year to year -- doing the best it can under all the circumstances. Ain't it so, Squire Ben?"

"Rather of -- that is -- my notion is, something so -- something so -- yes, a little so," said the Squire, throwing a side glance from the floor to Haddock, and from Haddock to the ceiling, and from the ceiling to Savage, and so resting again on the floor. Now the Squire was a very sensible man, and except in cases where he performed popular duty, he was a sort of Haddock-man himself, making every thing substantial and secure. Popular favor! How small a matter this. Yet Squire Ben Stout was too weak to resist it. As for Savage, he gloried in a set of principles that looked to popularity among the people as their great object.

"I brought up the little Bear Bridge," said Haddock, by way, merely, of example. "You don't yield the point there, and probably you won't in the case of the paupers. Now I am of the opinion that we must adopt a more merciful, truly benevolent, thorough, and, in the end, more economical way of supporting them. I want you to look at it with your eyes all open, and decide as candid men what we should do. Let us decide first on the principle. What is our duty to these poor creatures. What can they reasonably claim of us. Then we shall come easily, or at least understandingly, to the question of 'ways and means.'"

"You want, Mr. Haddock, that the town should saddle itself with a debt of five thousand dollars or vote a tax to meet it, just to put these old crazy coots, lying old devils, half of them, into a brick palace, and furnish waiters for them, and pay even something to boot, instead of pursuing the present economical and humane course that we have followed ever since the town had a pauper. How, in the name of reason, can you advocate so preposterous a plan? It's idle. Haddock, perfectly idle. Five thousand dollars! Good heavens! Haddock, why, you're crazy. Do you think. Squire Ben, that Crampton folks will ever come to that, hey?"

"I --- consider that ---"

"One minute, Squire, if you please," interrupted Mr. Haddock.

"Let the Squire speak." interrupted Savage, in his turn.

"Oh, to be sure, I only wanted to say ----"

"Time enough to say it when Squire Ben's got through. This subject is a confounded bore any way---"

"But we ought not to dodge it -- we can't dodge it. I know," said Haddock, "that this town has got a conscience; and I am determined to let the town have all the light I can, to operate on that conscience. We have a system of pauperage that is a disgrace to us. And to defend and to perpetuate it is an outrage."

Haddock was usually mild, but if he was crowded he could storm some as well as Savage; as for Squire Ben, he never stormed. He hesitated to commit himself irretrievably any way -- but always went with his party at least in hypothesis. Before Savage could reply, therefore. Squire Ben lifted his right foot from the floor, and resting it on his left knee, leaned forward with a finger pointing towards Haddock, as indicating the course of his reply, and an eye resting on Savage (who was ready with town retrenchment argument to overwhelm Haddock) as if he were the party to profit by his observations, and said at once --

"The town, Haddock, is one thing, conscience is another thing, and -- we know it -- we all understand it -- the poor another, or a third thing. Now, we must take care of the poor. That's principle -- ain't it. Mr. Savage?"

"Sartain," said Savage.

"Just so," said Squire Ben. "We must do that thing. And so conscience and principle go together. Now we -- don't need, Haddock, any -- that is, any considerable -- more light on that point you see -- for we are all posted up -- square up on the point of duty and principle -- morals and religion, and so forth. Now the next great question is, the money!"

"That's it, that's it, by thunder!" said Savage -- "the money."

"Well, there's money enough," said Haddock, "where there's a will."

"But there ain't a will," fiercely said Savage.

"You see, gentlemen," said the Squire, "the times are hard!"

"Cursedly hard!" said Savage.

"They are hard on the paupers, I know," said Haddock.

"Well, gentlemen, consider," said the Squire, "that the town must pay as it goes along. Now it is just as much as the voters will come up to, to raise a poor tax of four per cent. That's the most we've ever got; and that gives us eight hundred. Now we've fifteen poor folks, lacking the last death -- Joe Harnden -- and winter's at hand, when there'll be, probably, four or five more, and some half-pays about town in families. It -- seems to me, gentlemen -- that -- our course of duty lies just here. Hem! I think we should tell Bunce to give the paupers an extra allowance of cider in winter, a little more fire, a good substantial dinner of cheapish sort of food -- of course?"

"Of course!" said Savage.

"And see that they have doctoring -- some religious ceremonies; in a word, all necessary and suitable care: for the poor devils can't, you know, Haddock -- now you know that, don't you? -- can't, I say, take care of themselves, and so try to brush off the bad spots of the thing as much as possible -- and -- and -- "

"Let 'em slide," said Savage.

"Well, not exactly; yes, something so. Give it a good, humane setting out, and keep easy afterwards -- for," said he, shaking his finger portentously, and changing feet and knees, "the town won't be at the damage of any great reform."

"No, I s---r!" said Savage. "The system is a religious and humane one. Captain Bunce told me that the old widow Prescott kept the establishment as moral as a church, and that her prayers were enough to save the whole concern from ruin, here and hereafter; and that as for himself, he never felt more softened and humanely inclined, than when he saw the poor old creatures looking up to him for all their daily bread."

"Captain Bunce," said the Squire, "is a very good sort of a man, take him -- all in all. Sometimes Bunce is rather too snug in his management, perhaps -- very humane people would say so; but we must judge men by the long run, and Cap'n Bunce has had the job now going five years. Bunce knows how to manage them, all things considered -- as well -- for the town as we could reasonably expect."

"How long is it since you looked in there, Squire Stout?" inquired Mr. Haddock.

"Well -- whe -- w Let's see, Savage. Didn't we drop in there -- last -- Sep -- tem -- or was it --?"

"D----d if I know!" said that worthy.

"We called, I'm sure. Savage, last summer; it might have been a little earlier, or a little later. It don't make much difference."

"Well, I don't recollect calling since a year ago last fall," said Savage. "But what's the odds? Bunce takes all proper care of them; and it always gives me a sort of melancholy to see the critturs. They are a blasted sickly set, not long for this world at best, and a plaguey deal better off when out of it than in. But there it is. They are what they are, and can never be any thing else. Now what's the use, I say, of spending money, or even philanthropy, over the lot, when neither will do any good? They are paying up for past sins. They'd been a good deal better off if they hadn't sinned."

Mr. Haddock answered that, in his opinion, a great deal might be done to improve their condition even where they now were. They might have better clothing, food, rooms, fires, companionship or association; pursue a more desirable mode of daily exercise or labor, and be elevated, instructed, comforted, and prepared the better to live and to die. That here, as in other towns he had heard of, an entirely different system might be pursued, which would consist in placing the poor under the constant and humane care of the town agent, and avoid the sin and shame of knocking them down, as so many cattle, at auction, to any body who thought, by pinching them in every possible way, he might make a little money out of the job. "Nobody," he continued, will bid them off on the score of humanity, but always are they bid off on grounds of selfish considerations. A man bids on them to make money in keeping them -- that is, in half starving, half clothing, half warming them; half burying them when they, fortunately for him, drop off. Now, gentlemen," he continued, "do you call that a Christian institution -- a house of mercy and Christian humanity? Has it one solitary vestige of philanthropy? If yourselves were paupers, would it be a comfortable thing to live and die as Harnden did -- as others have done, and still are doing? Where is it better than slavery itself in many of its daily forms? What feature in it can truly meet the cordial approval of a good man of even common Christian views or humane principles?"

Squire Ben, and even Savage himself, listened attentively to Haddock's remarks, and confessed that there was more truth than fiction in them, but solemnly declared that the thing could not be helped.

"Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Haddock, "I have consulted with some men about it, and although at present we are few, yet we intend to persevere in an attempt to ameliorate the condition of our paupers. No system of tyranny and oppression resting in human selfishness can stand right in human consciences, nor is it right in the sight of God. These poor creatures have a claim on us to smooth their path to the grave. We owe it to our enlightened humanity and religion to make such a provision for our poor, that it may truly be termed a Christian beneficence. Every other thing is simply oppression or tyranny."

The Squire and Savage told Mr. Haddock that his sentiments spoke well for his heart, but that the project was perfectly chimerical.

"When the Little Bear runs up stream. Haddock, you'll get the thing through, and not afore," said Savage.

"Gentlemen," said the Squire, "let us -- drop in at the hotel and take a sling -- what do you say -- Savage -- Haddock, a sling, or ale -- hey?"

Mr. Haddock said he did not drink intoxicating liquors, and wished heartily they would follow his "example." Mr. Savage took a sling on principle. He thought it wrong to decline an invitation from one man, and accept from another -- it looked selfish and partial. Squire Ben seldom drank any thing but ale, (and little of that,) but "town-business" always "wore on him," and his education had led him to put confidence in invigorating beverages at such times; they spurred up the system to its full energy, and, in his case, always seemed to possess the exact virtues of a tonic.

The selectmen adjourned their session, and the paupers of Crampton remained at Bunce's.

CHAPTER VII.
The Haddocks.

AN hour had not passed after Harnden's departure, before a gentleman on horseback rode up to the poorhouse, and pulling up as he saw some of the people in the yard, exclaimed, "Good morning all, good morning! It's a fine cold air to-day."

"It's ruther too cold for a Carolina nigger like Bill, there," responded a gruff old fellow in a tattered drab coat and a slouching apology for a hat.

"Bill don't care fur dat two levies. When I was in de West Indies wid massa Col. Rathburn, the weather make no diff'rence wid Bill; hot and cold all like, so guess Bill can stand a little snap like a dis October grit, without much a grumble."

"Bill's pluck," screamed a wasted hag on the chips, whose garments were sadly torn and soiled, and whose face was wrinkled and disfigured. "Bill's pluck!" screamed she, "he's none of your craven, chicken-blooded scamps like Dan Barnes."

"Mind your lying tongue, Mag, or I'll heave at you!" retorted the gruff old fellow who first spoke, balancing a brick in his hand.

"Hold up! hold up, my good people," said the stranger, "no cause of quarrel here -- why get up one? Better be on good terms."

"Dan wants his grog," shouted the hag, and just then the heavy brick went whizzing over her head, and tore off the bark of a tree, which, luckily for Mag, it encountered instead of her form. Before he could repeat it, she leaped to her feet, and rushed behind the house. The stranger dismounted, determined to stop the affray.

"This won't do, Dan; we shan't allow it, you know better," said he, "than to flare up in this manner; you might have killed her with that brick."

"Wish to --- I had," grumbled he, "she'd gone then with Joe to 'tother world."

"Joe!" said the stranger, in an inquiring and surprised way.

"Yes, old Joe Harnden."

"What of him? What's he doing?"

"They're laying him out, now -- you knew Joe was dead and gone?"

The stranger turned away with a surprised and sorrowful expression towards the house. Directly he encountered a slovenly looking boy, grown out of his pants very nearly, with no hat on his head, and his long hair dangling uncombed over his neck and ears. The boy made a low bow and stopped.

"It's too late, sir, Joe's gone too," said he.

"Jims," said Mr. Haddock, for it was he, "why did you not run over and inform me of his sickness?"

"I was going tur; but, you see, the Cap'n sent me to git the doctor, and Joe died so thunderin' quick there warn't no time; it's the way, you know, with the poor folks!"

Mr. Haddock groaned as he stood over the body of the departed one, meditating on that life of sorrow, sin, and disappointment, now ended in the society and under the roof of paupers. And he said to his wife on his return home, "Once, Joe Harnden would have knocked a man down who told him he would die in any other condition than that of those who deem themselves worthy of the best lots in Greenwood or Mount Auburn. See, in his case, the work of intemperance and 'fast living.' It is a terrible life they pass, too, in the poor-house; it is sad and wretched in the extreme -- still, we must not give them up."

"Oh, no," said she; "let us hope to benefit them in some form, and especially that the public mind will, by-and-bye, be aroused to reform these places, and give the poor a more proper care. I do think there will yet be a change in Crampton."

As for the paupers, they must be classed as among the rubbish of this world's humanity. They have no property; few relations and friends, have feeble constitutions and poor health, very little ambition, less calculation; the lines of their faces show no beauty, nor their forms symmetry or grace. They look out of ugly eyes, they breathe a hateful atmosphere, are ragged, uncouth, and are often very vicious and sinful. Well, there they are. You must look at them. See what a piece of brother humanity can come to. Reflect that these disagreeable beings are in this degeneracy by reason, mainly, of outside pressure. Originally, they had a good start; but they fell behind in the life-race, and finally pitched headlong into the great slough of Poverty. Here they are -- so poor, so poverty-stricken, that they are ashamed of themselves; cringing, ragged, fearful creatures. But they owe it to poverty that they are so despicable now. They might retain the same souls; if their bodies were better clothed, they would pass for better stuff. It seems to be an outside pressure, in more senses than one, that they go into the pauper class. And what a class! Very well, there they are. Now consider them actually despised, and as far as possible, forgotten and neglected. We want the line drawn fairly between them and the rich, and to show them most grudgingly supported, and no concealment of the grudge. Now if we can't easily love that which is in itself no longer lovely and loveable, we may truly pity and befriend it. And this is duty, especially if applied to man. The suffering and the poor we ought to relieve, and so put in our relief that it will not only gladden, but elevate the subjects of it. If we do this, we show that we work for the poor out of real principle, from true pity, not to say love.

But these paupers seem, and they are, a forbidding class of men and women to work on. We must be very charitable indeed, or we shall fail of doing them any real good. They represent the great idea of want, or poverty. There they are in the clutches of poverty. Now consider the case and decide for thyself, reader, if duty does not lie towards them in the shape of help and encouragement, instead of neglect and contempt.

The inhabitants of Crampton knew, in general, less about the condition of their town-paupers than they did about the slaves of South Carolina, or the Sepoys in India. Those they read about; their town-paupers they left in the care of the "overseers" or selectmen.

Still, we should give credit where it belongs. There were persons who pitied them, and endeavored to do them service, and who sought to change the manner of their public support. We need hardly say that such an one was Mr. Haddock, who was one of those openhearted, generous souls, that if he saw any body suffering in his power to relieve him, would go about it at every cost to himself. He never stopped to ask if a man was rich or powerful, or poor and uninfluential; if he could relieve him, he at once attempted it. He lived not far from the poor-house, and often went over there to inquire how they got along.

So Mrs. Haddock was a lady of rare qualities of mind and heart. She was a sincere Christian, a pure-minded philanthropist, agreeing with her husband in all his benevolent plans, and to the utmost of her ability, helped them on. She was a lady of dignity and beauty, with great sweetness of character and energy of mind. Her views of duty were as clear as the light, and her decisions formed with surprising quickness, because her standard was the word of God, But the gentleness of woman shone through all her actions, things visionary, forward, bold, and absurd, forming no part of her excellent character, and commanding no attention or sacrifice of her womanly dignity and loveliness. They had three agreeable and very intelligent daughters, Frances, Ellen, and Sarah, and Mrs. Haddock took the highest interest in the formation of their characters. Her aim was to cultivate in them a correct idea and sincere love of benevolence. She desired them to possess an earnest compassion for the poor and suffering, and to have it for a great aim in life to do good -- not merely because there might be those who needed their kind offices, but for good's own sake, from a principle of goodness. Then she knew that artificial character, and spasmodic exhibitions of goodness would form no part of their mature development. In the main, she was successful. The girls were remarkable for system, thoroughness, true taste, excellent discrimination in their "charities," and for a judgment that very early distinguished them from a great many giddy heads and would-be-fashionable young ladies around them. They were not very handsome girls, but they were decidedly agreeable; and they were positively propossessing to many who professed to be good judges of beauty, but who declared it impossible to say whether they were handsome, or for some other cause attractive and winning. They had so many agreeable ways with them, people were so much pleased with their conversation, that it was almost impossible not to feel that, inasmuch as many look for beauty in females to interest them, they must be after all, very handsome young ladies!

It was well for the poor of Crampton that this family befriended them; that under all circumstances they could rely on their sympathy. Mr. and Mrs. Haddock lamented the condition the paupers were in, and the want of active and sympathetic labor in their behalf. It did not seem to them necessary that they should be kept in a manner at once disgraceful to the town, and mortifying and painful to themselves. They could see no good reason why there should be an unwillingness to provide for at least their conditional elevation.

"Why should they not be comfortable also?" inquired Mr. Haddock, "why always kept in a state of abject misery, subject to every human trial that such a state supposes, and of which it is the fruitful parent? Why not be respectably clothed, comfortably fed, and warmly housed? Why not put to suitable employment, and when they are sick, in want of assistance, why should they not enjoy the attendance of physicians, and the care of a nurse?"

They frequently brought up the subject in their family, and made it a topic of conversation with their neighbors. And living near to Captain Bunce, Mr. Haddock not unfrequently called on him, and visited the poor. Sometimes he had a little work that he would offer them; occasionally some blind, lame, or feeble representative of the poor-house would stray away to his premises, leaning on a rough staff, and Mrs. Haddock seldom permitted such a visitor to go away without a good bit of the breakfast or dinner that had been prepared for her own household.

If Mrs. Haddock or her daughters discovered any of the paupers needing warmer clothing, they would do all in their power to supply their wants. Still, it was often difficult to render as much relief as the charitable feeling prompted, for they were "Captain Bunce's people," and he occasionally resented all "interference," as he termed it, with his plans. He was on the best of terms with Mr. Haddock, but now and then he would fly in a passion, and say that Haddock and his wife were "humoring the 'patients' to death, and making them uneasy and mightily particular." Moreover, the manner of supporting the Crampton paupers was bad for their morals. They had little or no good instruction, example or motive. They were neglected and despised. If any were intemperate and vicious, very little restraint was ever used to correct their ways, so that it was not always safe to bestow your charities upon them, and was always discouraging. There were among them those who would not hesitate to pawn a coat, or a dress, a piece of meat, or even the Bible, for a small bottle of rum, or for a little tobacco. There were some of this class improvident, rough, saucy, wicked. All were not so. Some were truly virtuous persons, who had been brought into circumstances of poverty by afflictions and misfortunes that they themselves could not avoid. And there were others who were simple, weak in body and mind, their wants few, their condition never a very elevated one, never lower than now.

CHAPTER VIII.
BEEF for the Paupers. "He that considereth the poor, lendeth to the Lord." The immense deposits of virtuous credits laid up by a great many stock-towns in New England, of and for their regard for the Poor, it will take a good while in the next world to estimate.

"I WILL go over and pay Captain Bunce a visit," said, or thought, Mr. Savage, as he counted over, for the twentieth time, a stock of salt provisions in his cellar, consisting of sundry portions of beef A, I; beef A, II; beef A, III, C. B.; salt beef, long since packed, and waiting a favorable turn in the market for a cash transaction. "A, I," represented lot of first packed beef -- a lot of provisions bought on speculation, selected a long time back from the butcher's slaughterings, and made up of neck pieces, shanks, and their side bits, rather dark, bloody, and tough, this was "A, number one." "A, number two," represented a more recent purchase of similar provisions, longer packed. It was beef "A." In this respect it resembled "number one." But the honest severity of the speculator led him to designate it as "number two, A," which carried the appearance of prime "A" beef as to time, inferior only in the reasonable item of quality. As for "A, III, C. B.," the brand itself represented good beef, of third choice as to the cuts, inspected beef of good number three brand. But "A, III, C. B.," was really the owner's private mark on the barrel, by means of it he read as follows: "A barrel of three qualities of meat, one part being poor enough, another part poorer, and third part the poorest salt meat in market." "C. B." What do these letters represent, branded boldly on the head of the barrel? C. B.! They may stand for the name of the owner by whom the beeves were fatted and driven to market for slaughter, a good and honorable mode of pledging the article now under salt and brine. "C. B!" Yes, truly; they may simply convey the idea of Corned Beef, a good and delicious article for a stout and hungry man to dine on; or they may be the initials of Cash Beef, bought for cash, worth the cash, to be sold for cash; or they may contain an idle boast, Can't be Beat beef, that you know about as soon as you see it! But in Mr. Savage's nomenclature they simply denoted CAST BEEF, i.e., beef that came to salt in consequence of an unfortunate termination of life, by a sort of suicide on the part of the animal himself, rolling down into a position that he might have known would kill him before help could arrive in the morning. Criminal Beef, therefore. Cursed Beef -- but who cares what it is, or what it is not? It has a fair brand, "A, III, C. B.," call it beef, worked off -- for -- cas -- h, which is smoother than cas -- t. "I will go over and see Bunce," said, or soliloquized the owner. "He can use this stuff; it is doubtful about selling to Wallace, the merchant, at any price. His customer's won't buy it, and it won't bear a very tall recommendation any where. That's so. But the folks at Bunce's, what do they care? They'll like it, I reckon. It was good once, bad as it is now, and if Bunce buys it, why of course they'll eat it, and for aught I know, will be confoundedly thankful for it. People musn't starve in this free and fertile country. No, no. Let them live and be merry, say I. Yes, I'll go over and bargain off this lot -- let us see. Lot A, I, two barrels. Lot A, II, three barrels. Lot A, III, C. B., i.e., can't bless it, ha! ha! ha! Nice lot, that -- two barrels. In all, seven barrels -- I'll go right off, for the beef has evidently seen its best days, and won't improve by storage."

"Where now, Mr. Savage?" inquired his wife, "don't you see the dinner is just ready; are you going away before dinner, eh?"

"Yes, hang the dinner, wife. I have been ruminating over that villainous meat down stairs, till the very idea of corned beef is sickening. I am bent on getting it off my hands. Don't you think Bunce will like it for the poor folks, eh?"

"Well, why not, now? That's what I have thought on a dozen times. Yes, they'll do well with it."

"What's it worth, wife?"

"All you can get, I'll venture."

"Seven dollars?"

"Seven dollars!"

"Yes."

"No, Mr. Savage, it is not worth seven dollars. You can buy the best for nine and ten, you know."

"I guess it'll bring six, won't it?"

"No, if you sell it for five dollars, Mr. Savage, you'll be a lucky man, my word for it."

"Well, I shall sell it for what I can get. As for storing it longer in my cellar I won't. I'll work it off on Bunce or somebody, if I get but three dollars a hundred for it. Why, it has got awfully bad the last month."

"Sell it, sell it, Mr. Savage -- or give it away."

"Give it away!"

"Yes, if you can't sell it."

"Oh, nobody will want it as a gift, must sell it if I get rid of it. I'll work it off at some price -- and the higher we put it the more we'll get. So good-bye."

Captain Bunce was thinking what he should do next with his stock of poor folks to supply them with provisions not too substantial and costly, when he was surprised and delighted by a call from Mr. Savage, one of the overseers, between whom and himself there was a complete understanding as to expenses for the paupers. Now Savage had no thought of doing anything for the poor on the town, except what might be deemed absolutely necessary to preserve their lives; as for comfort, cleanliness, improvement, and the like, these never entered into his calculations. "Pinch them all you can, and then pinch them a little more," was his motto. Capt. Bunce was glad, I say, to see him, because sure that he would be able to help him in his dilemma, and endorse his plans.

The conversation between these worthies led forthwith to the subject uppermost in their minds.

"You have a good many to feed, Captain Bunce."

"About twenty; you see the cold has driven in some."

"They are a hard set of folks, ain't they though?"

"A bad lot, Mr. Savage; spoiled by indulgence and luxury."

"The overseers know about it, Cap'n; they know you've a task to provide for them, and to clothe and warm them, and all that thing. Yes, they consider these matters, and really sympathize with you a great deal."

"Ah!" said the Captain, "they don't now?" and he drummed with his foot.

"Yes," said Mr. Savage, "'a great deal,' that is, Capt'n, they think you're a plaguy sight too lenient with them, and put yourself too much out to comfort them." And Mr. Savage rubbed his knee wuth his left hand, and scratched his temple with the forefinger of his right.

"It is impossible to please everybody," replied the Captain, "and if I err on the side of humanity -- and the Board dislike it, why then, I must bear it, though I could wish to keep in with them."

"Never fear, Capt'n Bunce; the Board put the greatest confidence in you -- all things considered -- only they've an idea or two that might do you good if you under- stood."

"Yes?"

"To be sure. You see, Captain, the fact is, the Board know that you are the right man to manage these folks, and that you are as indulgent and careful of them as of your own limbs. In fact we are afraid you'll lose money -- and that you can't afford to. The Board don't want you to do that, you know!"

"Of course not," said the Captain.

"Of course," said Savage in reply. "Now as winter comes on, and they'll want more clothes, and more cider, and more of this, that and the other -- a mighty fuss they make about nothing-- the Board hope you'll be judicious, and not run behind hand, by being quite too lavish."

"Of course," said Bunce.

"Yes," said the other, "we understand this matter. The Board think you'll gain it by dosing pretty stiff with hard cider, which is a cheap drink, and they all like it, you know?"

"Very true."

"Yes, very," said Savage. "Then they think that you might burn a little cheaper sort of fuel -- more brush, soggy wood, old knots, chips, and so forth, and blaze away at little expense, but with quite a comfortable fire. You see they're a cold-blooded, shivery sort of folks, and fire goes as far as food with them.

"A good deal further," said Bunce, "it don't make much difference with them what they eat, if it's hot, and if they have a heating fire. So I reckon soup, hot soup, made of anything that's decent, you know -- "

"Just so," said Savage -- "and a good blaze, are about all they want."

"Well, I'll be hanged, Capt'n, if that ain't about my idea on the point. Cheap food, well cooked, is as good for them as dear food, especially if it ain't half done, you know."

"I want just now to find a lot of something for them. I've run out a lot of dull codfish that Wallace furnished me, and "

"I wonder. Captain Bunce, if you couldn't afford to go in for them, a little lot of my stock beef, stored in my cellar; a small lot, not over dear -- in fact I'll sell it cheap."

"Beef, you say?"

"Ai, beef."

"Well -- I rather think -- but I don't know, to be sure, that you wouldn't want too much for it."

"I want all it's worth, Capt'n, but I have got more than I want for my own family -- and to say the truth, it is rather a hard lot of meat, and we don't eat much of it at our house. But what of that? There it is for sale cheap."

"Then you don't ask full market price for it?"

"Not at all, not at all, no, no, Captain, not at all."

"And what discount do you make on it, eh?"

"I'll sell it low -- I will now, depend on't. What should you say. Captain Bunce, were I to put it down three dollars below the market, eh? Yes, sir -- three dollars!"

"And call it seven?"

"Ai, seven. How does that strike you, eh?"

"I----"

"You see, Captain, it is solid, full weight, and will last like an old family Bible. One barrel will keep the whole company a month, and eat it all the time. I never saw such beef. You see it is home fed -- none of your western, stringy, distillery fed stuff-- not at all, but regular pack-beef, prime."

"Not mess -- of course," said the Captain.

"Why, no, of course not; mess is worth twelve dollars, cash. But this little lot is good, prime beef. It ain't the best of pieces, we all know -- and is a little old, hard, but three dollars off, you know, eh, Captain? And just the thing for your people. You see it comes handy for you just as winter sets in, a tough winter coming on, and prices of food going right up. I will put it at seven for the lot, eh?"

"I dare say it is cheap," said Captain Bunce, "but I am rather afraid of tough beef, for the folks are a little lame in the jaws, you know, being oldish, and fond of slosh."

"Ha! ha! ha! Captain, good, not bad. But the beef is nourishing, though rather stiff, and once down it answers all purposes, and nobody knows or cares whether it's first chop, and tender, or not -- and it saves lots of money."

"The beef, Mr. Savage, will answer, I dare say, but you and I know it is tough."

"Why, yes, Capt'n, it is; but then it is so d--- cheap, you know?"

"I'll think of it, Mr. Savage, yes, I will," and the Captain put his hands in deep in his pantaloons pockets.

"Think of it!"

"You know one wants a little time to think of the matter. But I'll make you an offer. You say there are three or four barrels?"

"Yes, I should think so." And Savage counted them over three or four times on his fingers to be sure of it. "Yes, there are three, certain," said he -- and after a pause he added, "I won't swear but there's a trifle more."

"Well, Savage, I'll take the lot on six months at six dollars."

"Oh, ho! Captain. Hang your 'six.' You know it's dog-cheap at seven. Take it at seven, and feed 'em on it till they're fat as bucks. The Board will like it, I know. Fact is, you took the gang fifty dollars under, and every body knows it. Now you must buy cheap, and buy the right sort, or you'll come out sold, eh? I want to help you all I can -- call it seven and it's yours, eh?"

"Savage, you are a little heavy on me. I want the meat, but seven is not cheap for it. No. You say there are three barrels -- I wish there warn't but two, now I do, on my honor. I'll tell you. Savage, what I'll do -- give me two barrels, 'A, I,' at seven, and keep the balance to yourself."

"Pshaw, now Capt'n, what's two barrels of beef in your family? Ha! ha! ha! You want the entire lot. I can't sell A, I, and keep the other. Now that wouldn't do at all."

"Well, I say. Savage, I'll take the lot at six fifty, six months."

"Six fifty," soliloquized the other, "six fifty, too confounded low, too bad, tremendous discount -- can't, can't stand it. It's a bad spec, I vow -- six f-i-f-t-y -- w-h-e-w" --

"Well," interrupted Captain Bunce, "what do you say, Savage; it's all I'll give you for the grizzly stuff if you ponder over it for a month. What say you?"

"You shall have it -- yes -- let it go. Take it, Bunce, and feed your folks on it till they're as strong as stags. Fact is, they will draw heavy on you if you don't buy cheap. Board think you are too easy with them, and will run behind if you keep them too well. You shall have the beef."

"Agreed," says Bunce, "four barrels at the outside?"

"One, two, three, four -- there's certainly four, I don't swear to the barrels," and Savage counted over his fingers again and again. "But more or less, take it at your own offer, six fifty, six months."

"I'll take it," said Captain Bunce.

"And now," said the second selectman, "you know these poor devils will die off pretty fast, any way, so you'd better get the doctor to call once in a while, and take a little blood from some of them, and give a little mercury and ipecac, and paregoric or rhubarb. It will look humane. And so," said he in a whisper, "now and then call in Parson Rowland or Rector Evans to give the folks a religious Bible-talk. It will have a grand effect. Captain. Every body. Haddock, and all, will feel satisfied that you do every thing in your power, for both body and soul of the wretches. Esq. Ben and I think you do too much for them now, and you had better be careful not to overfeed them -- as you have done sometimes -- because. Captain, you can't afford to be too generous."

After this Mr. Savage left, and Captain Bunce fell to ruminating over his past conduct towards the paupers. He eventually became rather sober and melancholy, a little absent-minded, and curt in his manners, insomuch that the folks noticed it, and made sundry comments on his actions.

"He is thinking of poor Harnden, I think," said the widow, "of his sorrowful death, and I hope it will be blessed to him."

"More likely he is thinking of his own sins, and is justly alarmed," said Alanson Boyce, the State pauper, who was sustained at this institution according to the statute law of the State, at a sum "not exceeding one dollar" per week. Alanson, whatever he once had been -- and that we shall have time to speak of by-and-bye -- was now a forlorn being, impotent, poor to the last degree, who, in his poverty, wandering here and there, fell into the hands of the authorities of Crampton, and he became a State charge. When he dies, his funeral charges, which the common law of the States fixes at six dollars -- not exceeding that, and as much less as you please -- will go into the bill against the Commonwealth.

"The Captain's had seas of trouble," said colored Bill, one of the paupers, who worked a little in the fields, cut up wood at the door, took some care of the cows, horses, and young cattle; and when moving about was seen bare-headed, and often bare-footed, under all skies, and in all seasons. His red flannel sleeves cropped out at his elbows, and at every other convenient loop-hole; and when he was without a coat, his cord suspenders showed the service they rendered his patched and tattered breeches.

Bill was a clever, simple person, of a decided color, being a regular importation from Africa -- a West India slave, belonging to Colonel Rathburn. When the Colonel came to America, and settled in a romantic, beautiful spot in Crampton, Bill accompanied him, and had his freedom given him -- poor soul! -- as though he were not entitled to it, all the Colonel Rathburns in the country notwithstanding -- all the laws and customs of men and nations to the contrary notwithstanding: his freedom given him! Who gave it? GOD, HIS MAKER. Who took it away -- Colonel Bathhurn? Yes, Colonel Rathburn bought him, soul and body, and worked him in the West Indies, and brought him to America, and there he also conferred on him here the honor of freedom! So Bill having two good titles to liberty -- viz., one on the part of his Maker, and the other on the part of Colonel Rathburn -- was a man of some consequence. He lived in the family till the Colonel died, and until his wife died and the children had spent the estate. Two of them died in great want and disgrace. Bill was their chief helper for a long time, fairly earning money by day's work to support them in their great destitution. He was now old and feeble. His hair was thin and gray. He wore a serious, solemn look, and said but few words. He could hoe a little, pick up stones, cut a little brush for the fire, wait on Mrs. Bunce and the family, (and all white people are fond of having a negro do chores for them, because negroes are very deferential, and so well seem to know their inferior position!) But he is old, is rather stiff, often cold, of little real use, of little personal comfort. Bill may not last long. There's many a worse man than he. He is never hateful, selfish, or clamorous; never in any body's way; never sports with the unfortunate. He really does to others all the good he can, knowing from his own experience that this is a "troublous world." Bill speaks kindly and sorrowfully to poor reduced white people, for he knows that they must suffer much to be brought down from an easy and a high position in life to such a state of want as is indicated by the poor-house.

"Yes," says Bill, "the Captain's had seas of trouble; I don't wonder he's sort'er sad and down at the mouth. Who wouldn't be?"

Aunt Dorothy, smoking her pipe, and leaning on her staff, shook her old sides as she laughed and shouted -- "The Captain's thinking of my blessing, I guess; don't you, aunt Prescott? ha, ha!"

In this group of paupers there is Dan Barnes, an old man of sixty-five, with a firm, iron-like constitution, of late somewhat shaken by his excessive intemperance, the besetting sin of a life-time. He is coarse, brutal and ugly. Ten years of his precious probation, he has passed in the State Prison, by his assiduous attention to business there, materially lessening the expenses of his sojourn in that quiet institution, though learning there no valuable lessons to apply in his individual practice outside. He is a hard fellow, being an old fighter and swearer, but shiftless and thriftless -- a starving old pauper at the last. There is hardly a more unblushing villain, a more desperate character than he, only that being nearly three-score-and-ten, and broken up somewhat by a life of extraordinary forage on society, and collision with conscience, as well when out of as when in the quarters furnished him by the State, he cannot execute all the wickedness that is in him. He will practice it out more perfectly, as is supposed, when he gets into the prison house, which favors uneasy souls in acting out character, i.e., perfect character -- a character that here, by reason of some moral and social relations, they find it a little difficult to make as transparent as they could humbly wish. Maugre all this, it is fearful to have him about -- to hear his coarse jests, listen to his foolish speeches and songs, his oaths and obscenity. It is one of the objections to a life at the poor-house, that Dan is one of its regular inmates -- so thinks old aunt Dorothy -- the widow Prescott even, with all her goodness and charity; the young, half-witted Roxy Waldins and squalid Mag Davis. So thought once old Joe Harnden. Even colored Bill dislikes him; and Jims, the boy, hates him as he hates salt pork when it is sweet, and coming but once in a week, fails to go round! "C---- pork," says Jims on such uneasy occasions. Alas! that the imprecation should have a reflex influence more direful than its direct. In like manner even, Mrs. Joanna Dodge, the old lady in a red cotton handkerchief for her head dress, and the lame, staff-using widow Rice, and tall Ebenezer Cowles, ruined by hard drink, and Brige, the old shoe-maker of Crampton.

And even old Joe Tucker and Polly his wife, and all the others wish Dan, comfortable and sober in his old apartments, another secured to him against all outsiders by the careful consideration of the State, for the term of his natural life. It is uncomfortable to any man of spirit to be harassed in this way. So Dan is continually ruffled by the treatment he receives from his fellow mendicants, and determines that he will be a real porcupine among the snakes. Dan had once owned a farm; he had a good house, a pleasant wife, and was thought to be well off. But by degrees his own coarse nature revealed itself, he got down to a point so low in character and position, that there was no relief. He went to prison. His wife, who had long suffered sadly at his hands, now obtained a separation from him, and, albeit, she survived his liberation, she never saw him more. He was a bloated, swearing, evil man, and few there were of any class in human life, who affiliated with him. Dan, with one of his muttered oaths, declared that he had studied character a good deal in his former residence, meaning his long ten years' residence, to which we have already alluded, and was sure that Captain Bunce was "trying a sort of States prison reform of life." Nobody knew better than Dan what State prison penitence meant! Very generally Captain Bunce was criticised by his poor people who, on the whole, rather regarded him as working a sort of up-hill-repentance for the shortcomings of his past life.

But Captain Bunce had in a measure forgotten Joe Harnden, aunt Dorothy's blessing, and the widow's prayers. The "short comings of his past life" were, it is true, overwhelming him, but the short comings themselves were the out goes of his establishment, that he rather considered had been too generous -- too satisfactory to the town, unnecessarily burdensome to himself. He was, in a sort of penitent brown-study as to the best way of retrieving his past errors, and applying his humanity by a more stringent and rigid rule, avoiding such a tremendous going beyond his duty. He could not get over it that he should lose the "good opinion," as he called it, of Squire Ben Stout, and of the other selectmen, or that they should be troubled with the idea that he was treating the paupers too well.

"Heaven knows," soliloquized he, "that I never meant to do that; the most I ever dreamed of was to do about right, but to be charged with squandering money on them too lavishly -- ah! 'that is the unkindest of all cuts.' "The Captain had heard this saying in his life as applied to others, but he now thought it would apply to him better than anything else he could recall to mind, either of an oral or recorded nature, and so he "out with it," adding, as he put his hands in his pockets and fumbled over the loose coppers and ten cent pieces there, "Heaven save me from my best friends," which was another sentiment the Captain recollected just in time to give him some comfort.

But on the whole he was unhappy over this subject. He did not like to be called a spendthrift in a case so utterly destitute of true merit. He could conceive of no real temptation to such a sin, if sin it were, and he confessed himself more troubled about it than he ever remembered to have been before.

Poor, conscience-stricken Bunce. He has very sad reflections -- the paupers notice and speak of it -- but at the same time, he encounters another great difficulty, the two are almost enough to crush him; it is this, to find a rule of fractions by which to work a larger denominational value to his poor-house "findings."

CHAPTER IX.
NORTHERN fear of the Poor-house. The Pepper's. Very poor people, and people not the poorest, often and generally envy the rich. It was an early development in society that riches carried great weight, so all the poor people have been mad after them. Here we show you what a pleasant thing it is to be rich.

CRAMPTON had a large, busy town-population, i.e., an active, enterprising village citizenship, where the majority of the people resided, and it had a large rural population. There were some very large and fine farms in the place. The village, or "city," as it was called, quite on the east side of the town, like many others in New England, was filled up with mechanic shops, manufactories of various kinds, stores, hotels, and so forth. A large, rapid stream, formed by the union of the Little Bear and Slip-Slop Creeks, furnished a magnificent power for machinery, and was improved to its utmost extent by the enterprising capitalists of the place and of the neighboring towns. A very large cotton factory, four stories high, two hundred feet in length, containing eight thousand spindles, and thirty or forty looms, involving a first cost of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and giving work to more than two hundred men, women, and children, was the principal manufacturing establishment in the place, though as it was on the east side of the bridge, it was really in the town of Ladderville. But the bridge, a wide, strong, stone arch, formed a connection so complete that it was all called by the name of Crampton, a very busy, factory-bell sounding village, grown up rapidly, having also a large imported population, three or four churches with and without crosses, long lines of similar looking dwellings, interspersed with hotels, stores, "saloons,'' as they are called, and "bazaars," entered at the sides of screens, and brilliantly lighted, where, behind the screens, pieces of naked statuary fill the niches and recesses of the walls, (such is, indeed, the public taste!) and exquisite paintings of robeless women in every luscious attitude also adorn them, pleasant incitives these to a social "round" at the bar; billiards, cards, and dancing completing the happy joviality of these -- forsooth -- saloons! bazaars!

In this busy town there were also found the usual appendages to society in its highly civilized state, and without which a certain per cent. of the population would die of ennui, sensibly and painfully noting the absence of their chief good -- and making the streets of Crampton as still and as gloomy as a Sabbath to them -- I mean the appendages of oyster shops, groggeries, and beer-holes, nine-pin alleys, cock-fights, cards, billiards, and so forth. And at and in these, graduated much of the pauperism of the town. In these rummies, and licensed houses for the "refreshment" of body and spirit, many a Harnden, Dodge, and Sherman, got his ticket to the privileges and entertainments of the poor-house. Here, also, were livery-stables where horses and carriages were furnished on Sundays, at higher prices than on week days, for the demand was greater. Here were found open drug-stores, all day and evening of the Sabbath, for there are more calls for ipecac and elixir paregoric on Sunday than on, any other day. We wonder why the banks did not follow the example, on account of notes maturing on that day. It would, indeed, seem to be more in accordance with the exactness of banking rules, than to make those notes payable on Saturday, or to "grace" them till Monday -- a never-thought-of-thing, this last, we agree!

In the village proper, or city as was its nom de plume, there were also here and there, in the so-called "places," "avenues," and "squares," smart blocks of houses, tenanted by the aristocracy of the place, i.e., by retired rich men, by owners of stock in the factory, bank presidents, directors, stockholders, brokers, overseers, heavily salaried agents, officers in various benevolent institutions, etc., etc. And in one of these, a princely dwelling it was, on the Ladderville side of the stream, where were several of the handsome public buildings, and three or four modern built churches, lived George Pepper, Esq., a hundred thousand dollar stockholder in the great brick factory.

Pepper was an only child of John Pepper of Crampton -- miserly, churlish, rich old John Pepper -- who, though once young, once an active merchant, once a man 'among men, is now a peevish, unhappy, fearful old miser, living in the outskirts of the town, on one of his farms, in a low, dingy-looking house, once tenanted by one of his farmers. He is an owner, though unwillingly, in the factory -- George Pepper managing his interest there and his own. But the old gentleman does not leave it wholly to George, his anxiety forbidding this wholesale reliance on another, even his first-born son and only one. He is owner in other stock, in bank stock, in real estate, and has money on exorbitant interest well and securely funded. But he is poor: nobody is more so. He has not a dollar he can call his own; he has no money to let, or lend, or give to any body or for any object. But still he is every body's banker who can give him his security; and notwithstanding his great poverty, he can command immense sums of money. The miserly quality of John Pepper's old age is communicated to the soul of his wife, Mrs. Rachel Pepper, who incessantly busies her mind with the uncomfortable consideration that her husband is too great a spendthrift, and that both he and she will yet come to be occupants (in re) of the Crampton poor-house. So thought Pepper himself. It was this idea that made him extremely nervous, unaccommodating, and personally griping. Mr. and Mrs. Pepper lived on less food than the individual half-fed paupers. But their dieting in this cheap way was a voluntary act, the result of their private reasonings on the future, and the conviction of their minds on the score of duty.

In the case of the Peppers was truly exhibited the apprehension of the people at the North of coming to the poor-house. If they have a terror -- the people in general -- of any earthly calamity or downfall, it is this condition of poverty. It is feared by the rich as well as by the poor; the learned as well as the ignorant; many an author, poet, teacher, divine, having had the pinchings of hunger in the garret, and tasted in an alms-house or hospital the bitterness of want. It has foreshadowings of evil to the young as well as the old, having a terrible and common celebrity and importance. Parents introduce the idea early to the notice of their children, informing them that unless they save all their money, unless they are sharp in their bargains, look well to their own advantage, are very economical in their necessary expenses, and disinclined to generous charity and benevolence, they will surely come to the poor-house. This is the instruction of many a fireside, the seed sown in the youthful heart, that takes root and grows up into a tree of deadly shade on the pathway of life.

This fear of the poor-house, the terror it inspires, has in itself the gleamings and rumblings of retribution; for as one has cultivated a heart of selfishness, and denied the calls of mercy and charity, so he thinks it may fall to him in the end that the same blasting winds shall sweep away his goods which have carried away the goods of others.

The poor-house is the possible chance of every man, woman and child. It is the refuge of the blind, the lame, the outcast. And who may not become as one of these, even?

Old Mr. and Mrs. Pepper were very careful accumulaters. They worked together to this end always, never designedly parting with any portion of their gains for private enjoyment, nor willingly for any public good. Their dwelling house much resembled in point of age, color, and true value -- the poor-house itself. Within, however, it must be confessed, the very miserly disposition of its occupants, led them to scrub the walls, and air the rooms, and preserve them from decay. Mrs. Pepper thought little or nothing of scrubbing skin from her fingers, and of deadening the tender sensibility of hands and limbs in the service of a drudge at all work. It was nothing worth to wear out herself if thereby she saved a penny, and put a little in the background the tormenting vision of future poverty.

The roof of their old mansion was patched up here and there, that it might not leak a drop! Dampness on the roof was bad enough; but in the chambers -- lo! the poor-house. The house boasted a front door, but it seldom swung on its hinges, as the other entrance on the east end of the dwelling was the more convenient to the kitchen, and it was there the worthy couple passed most of their hours when together. But it had no front fence. That were an idle expense, both to make and keep it in repair -- especially, also, as neither shrub nor flower grew and thrived under the eaves. It was a low, dark, dingy looking house, cheerless, forbidding, uncomfortable. True, man and woman tenanted it -- a married pair sworn to love and helpfulness; but there also was apprehension, selfishness, worldly care, and shudderings over a possible future -- a certain seeming assurance of the dark and gloomy days of want. This it was that ruled out love, happiness, and peace from their home; that blasted their old age, and transformed every blessing into a curse. Omens of the future; omens of a dark and wretched future; omens of poverty, loomed up in every picture of life, to others pleasing and predicatory of enjoyment.

Mr. Pepper was close with himself to a penny, emphatically cautioning his aged spouse never to buy steaks for dinner above the six cent rounds, and those but once in a fortnight; and Mrs. Pepper begged him to moderate his appetite for steaks, by previous indulgence on herrings two for a cent. Mr. Pepper threatened to sell all his hens if Mrs. Pepper allowed herself to use an egg in cooking pies, puddings, or cake; while Mrs. Pepper administered reproof to her husband for putting twelve eggs under a hen, when it was evident from the brood of chickens that only eleven would hatch, in twelve and a half cent trades, Mr. and Mrs. Pepper seldom failed to appropriate the half cent to themselves. Whenever interest on notes for odd days made the fractional value doubtful, Mr. Pepper reasoned the doubts into assurances in his favor. Both Mr. and Mrs. Pepper had, time and again, proved to their perfect conviction, by numerical calculations, the absolute wasting of their fortune in a given time, and they grew more and more miserly, mean, and mercenary as they approached the grave -- seeing, hearing, dreaming of nothing so much as the same portentous symbol of their latter end, the poor-house.

Even Christian men and women at the North are much troubled at the idea of future poverty. It requires all their philosophy, and the aid of much prayer, to overcome these apprehensions. They work hard, and save every thing in their power: very frequently is this so, that they may not die in the poor-house, or in poverty.

Thus passed they into life beyond their three-score years and ten, feeling more and more the need of wealth, of what comforts it might procure them, of the good they might accomplish with it, but, under the ceaseless workings of a miserly fear of want, viewing themselves every new year poorer than in any previous one. What ceaseless activity did Mr. Pepper display in guarding his investments! How constantly he predicted the failure of banks and associations, the downfall of prices, the ruin of all capital, and the failure of all men to meet their engagements! He would frequently declare, when a payment was made him of interest on a note, or the principal itself, that he would never again loan a dollar! But the renewal of the temptation, when the security was undeniably good, as often led him to break his promise, in spite of his predictions and fears. Accordingly, his interest money was yearly of great amount, and as he expended literally almost nothing, of course his property was ever and largely on the increase.

But more begets its want, and Mr. and Mrs. Pepper were the poorest people in Crampton! They never had any thing for new clothes, new furniture, new food, new house, or barn, or vehicle. Never any thing for improving the town, or the country. Never a dollar for some heart-stirring benevolence, no money for the poor, none for education, none for morals and religion. No, nothing.

"We are too, too poor, and shall come to the poor-house."

Surely there must be something in the poor-house, as an institution in every town, contrary to human pride, comfort, desire, and happiness -- the very opposite of the life man ever seeks for himself, for which he toils, and risks life, and reputation, and present enjoyment; the dark picture this, undoubtedly, that man holds up before him to nerve his efforts, to fortify his weakness, to encourage his self-denials. Oh! if he can save his wife, and children, and himself, from the miserable fates of poverty -- from the tender mercies of pauperism, from the cold charity of the town, the compulsory help of men who have no souls, and from the self-tortures and degradation of such a state, what labor, to what effort and sacrifice will he not submit, and on how small and scanty portion of life's good nourishment, feed himself!

Yes! I have seen the poor-house, where the inmates huddled together with gleaming eyes, in ragged and patched garments, in cold, and hunger, and wretchedness, men, and women, and children, vice and virtue, innocence and sin, making one fire warm as they gathered round it, and at night making common lodgings on the same creaking, scantily provided bed. Opened doors, and opened halls, and broken windows, in winter let pierce them, blasts which their enfeebled frames could ill endure. And at all seasons of the year the uncleanly, unventilated apartments, gave off a revolting effluvia, from which all the good and wholesome of earth would shrink back in blank and terrible amazement.

And every one of these miserable objects, though a human being, was a pauper, one who could not help himself, who had got through his chances of good fortune, (if we except the young,) and was here to look back on life and shudder over it; to look forward to a gift-grave, without a head-stone, or a handsome coffin or funeral, the very prayer over his grave a donation, and lamentably patronizing -- the mourners, NONE.

I know not why it is so, fully, but the fact cannot and will not be denied, that men at the North have not only fearful apprehensions of the poor-house, but they despise and hate it. No man respects it; no man esteems it a desirable refuge -- not even the poor; no men or women pray over it as a Christian institution. It is not once named in the catalogue of church charities. No contribution for the poor-house, as such, is ever made in the sanctuary; be it, however, true that individual charity may sometimes flow that way through undiscovered channels. Of late, on days of public thanksgiving, and at Christmas and New Years, the great hotels in our cities have liberally bestowed, for distribution among the suffering and reclaimed ones at the Five Points and elsewhere, the good things of their own princely tables. But it is true, as we have said, that the poor-house is not a special charity of individuals, or of communities of even Christian men. It is the taxed provision of the town. Every man's property -- hard and selfish old bankers, young and enterprising farmers, men of all trades and professions -- their property is taxed to support those who have no property; to support those that belong to their town, because no other town will support them -- one of them. Unwillingly taxed, yet made to bear it; taxed too heavily, as hundreds reason; taxed unreasonably long, say they. The poor have been through this themselves; have often, it is likely, paid their tax to support the town paupers, and cursed them between their teeth as they did it. Now they are receiving the same unwillingly proffered soup and bread! The cursings of generations rest on this house of wailing. Not a being is there, it may be, who has not seen his day of pride, when he cursed the poor for their imbecility and thriftlessness. And so, the "curse causeless" coming not, they in their turn bear it: and it is a fell and bitter one. Every tax-payer is secretly glad, perhaps, when this and that INCUMBRANCE on the town gets through, and goes to his last cold pillow. How the tides of selfishness all set up against this last and unfortunate stopping-place of the poor livers, the poor, thriftless vagabonds, and houseless, homeless, dollarless, dimeless ones of the world! As every body hates and dreads and curses it, so the curse seems to rest upon it; and I do not know so undesirable a home as it, in what may be called a free condition or state of the human body. To be sent to the prison or goal is disgraceful, but not so hopeless and pitiless. A man goes to prison for three, five, or ten years; but he does not by that lose caste with the world. He may survive the ordeal, and with unbroken energies, achieve afterwards a name and secure a fortune. But the pauper is done with. Society hopes not nor expects from him any improvement, nor any available labor or remittances, save the last labor of his dying breathings, the remittances of his taxable support!

Old Mr. Pepper had often cursed the poor-house; Mrs. Pepper had denounced it. Both of them feared it. They predicted their last home in it. They hated it, yet were sure they should tenant its rooms, and taste its bitterest cups. To the poor-house and all its horrors they were fast gliding, though now nearly eighty years of age, and of unquestioned wealth. "We shall go to the poor-house yet," said Mrs. Pepper, when a lady asked her for a dollar to buy garments for Mrs. Sevens and her eight children; "we shall go to the poor-house ourselves yet." "Before we die we shall get into the poor-house," said John Pepper, Esq., to his son, who begged him to assist in building a new church; we shall go to the poor-house, and you know it." And to the poor-house, it is true, they finally went! Did they not deserve to go there?

CHAPTER X.
DUTY leads in the way of securing and laying in PROVISIONS. JIMS vs. DAN, and Dan vs. Jims.

ONE morning, soon after the interview which took place between Mr. Savage and Captain Bunce, the latter directed Dick, his son, to have the team put to the cart, "both yokes," and to go over with John, the hired man, and with Dan and Bill, to Mr. Savage's for a lot of beef he had bought of him, and to stop at Durkee's, the butcher, for a barrel or two of heads, neck pieces, and shanks, and at Bowler's for a couple of barrels of cider. "And if you want him, take Jims along with you," said he.

"Want him!" exclaimed Dick; "I should as soon want a wild cat. He's a young devil at best, and needs a flogging every day of his life."

"Hold up, Dick, hold up," said his father; "Jims is a brat, I know; but we must consider that he's young, yet, in manners, and that he will grow better by-and-bye."

"He'll swing for it one of these days, or I'll marry old Mag, by heavens!" said the hopeful Dick.

"Oh, don't be too dead on Jims," replied the Captain. "He may come to the State prison; but I hope he'll escape the gallows. Call him if you want him."

"JIMS!" shouted Dick, three or four times, in vain.

"JIMS!" hoarsely and sternly cried the Captain. But no "Jims."

"Dan," said Dick, as that worthy appeared, "if you know where Jims is bring him here, and also old Bill I want you three to go with us this morning."

"Go where?" savagely growled the old criminal.

"Over t'other side, with the team."

"When are you going?"

"Now, in five minutes."

"Havn't had any thing to eat yet."

"Well, whose fault is that? There's food enough, if you are a mind to eat it."

"The cold vituals getting bad tho', and not much on't."

"None of your impudence, Dan. Eat your stuff and come along. Find Bill and Jims, and bring them. Tell Jims to ride old Roan to Sparks' and get her shod, and then come to Savage's with the tackling to hitch her ahead of the team."

In a warm corner of the poor-house "public room," as it was called, not far from the fire, rolled up in a tattered and faded blanket, a human figure might be noticed, apparently in a deep sleep. He seemed regardless of the chattering voices around him, of the shoutings without, even of his own name, of his own hard bed and comfortless bedding, of every thing, of life. His breathings were long and heavy, and he occasionally grated his teeth together, as you have seen or heard children whose sleep is more or less uncomfortable and disturbed, and anon he muttered unintelligible words. But no one noticed him, no one spoke to him, although a number were in the room, and some were loquacious and even merry and facetious over their cold breakfast of yesterday's bone-pickings and liver. They were accustomed to his ways, which also resembled their own, for all in the poor-house lounged down when and where they chose. Besides, Jims was a lad of but ten or twelve years of age, a mere stripling among them, who, though somewhat wilful and headstrong, was rather a favorite with the old folks, on account of his willingness to take their part when the Captain was rough and hard on them, and because he often rendered them boyish services, running into the yard for chips, and up stairs for a pipe, and could get down on his hands and knees and stoutly blow up the coals when the fire was low, and now and then could get an extra mug of cider, without discovery, to cheer some fainting soul or thirsty palate, or perchance steal or beg a parcel of tobacco for the common good, and it might happen, a chicken! Naturally a smart, bright boy, the life led at this institution was any thing but appropriate to the development of his true nature, its associations being far below the true standard of morality; its amusements, its labors, its experiences, its comforts degrading and demoralizing. Jims, notwithstanding the disadvantages of his position, was a tall, stout, athletic boy, although rather awkward and ungainly. He now slept on, and breathed heavily as though his rest in the night had been disturbed, and he determined to get its equivalent after sunrise.

In the meantime, aunt Dorothy was trying to munch her breakfast of hard bread and tough liver, washing it down her throat with cheap tea, sugarless and milkless, anon alternating with well watered cider, and interlarding,

"Drum, de drum, drum, drum, Come let us join,
Do, de, dro, dro, drum our cheerful songs,
Drum, drum, drum, dro, de dro drum, with angels
Dro, dro, dro, round the throne."

Bill had just fired up his pipe, and was preparing for a good cruise against Old Time, Hard Luck, and Dame Fortune. Boyce, the "author of Blamstown, a novel," had unrolled his musty and undecipherable manuscript, and, leaning over a chest, was carefully reading it, as he alone could read it, and at the same time soaked a hard crust in harder cider, thus essaying to feed at the same time both soul and body. (Poor Alanson, his last manuscript would not sell. "The Trade" refused to take the risk, and its author being too poor to print it himself, retired first to a small third-story room, where he lived cheap, and then to a garret where he lived on -- nothing. Driven thence by a remorseless landlord, he finally took out into the country, roving here and there, wandering about until he at last fell within the limits of Crampton, and the "authorities" took him in a very weak and half-starved condition to the poor-house. Here he has been for two or three years, no publisher appearing to print his last work, despite his former celebrity as the author of a work that run through ten editions in six months. Poor Alanson Boyce! He has spent his ten per cent. copyright, and now there is but "a wreck of him left behind." Accustomed to hard fare, he will not immediately "drop off," but he will gradually go down. He has got near the last round of his ladder. He is a tall, dark-eyed, slender-framed man of thirty. His black hair falls down over his face, hiding in part his sunken, shrivelled, and wan features, that still betray no ordinary intelligence. Boyce has seen better days, and came to America from England. When he walks, he bends over his staff and warily picks his way, lest the least obstruction should throw him down. His hand trembles violently as he lifts the glass to his lip, or conveys food to his mouth. His hat is broken, the buttons to his coat are worn through, the white lining of the elbow reveals itself, pants and shoes are seedy. He is moneyless, friendless -- nay, the girl named Roxy befriends him, and occasionally pats him on the cheek, gives him a cracker, picks up his cane, gives him her seat by the fire, begs him a cup of warm tea, and bids him "cheer up." Jims always loves to hear him read his "stories" from his papers, and takes his part against the churls of the establishment. The pious widow reads to him from her worn Bible -- so he is not wholly friendless. But the busy world has nearly forgotten him -- indeed few, if any of his readers and former admirers, know the first word of his present misery. Through the long, cold, and damp winter of forty, Boyce, the fine writer and agreeable gentleman of other days, dragged the weary months away in the poor-house of Crampton, a state pauper.) Some are walking here and there, or looking out of door or window. Blind Hetty threads her way through the dingy abode to seek aunt Prescott -- still Jims rouses not, nor seems to be any nearer the end of his sonorous sleep. Sweet is sleep, even to the poor and miserable vagrant. Sleep -- that boon of God to man universal. It comforts the weary, it restores the sick and drooping, it shortens the up-hill of life, it graduates human experiences for the time being, it obliterates present woes, and gives one strength for future ones.

We know not how much longer Jims might have slumbered, but for the approach of Dan -- surly, heavy-treading, hateful, prison-escaped Dan. He came on the errand of beating up and breaking up the quarters of Bill and Jims, by the mandate of Dick Bunce.

"Where's Bill?" said he, in a coarse, gruff tone, as he came to the door and encountered the girl Roxy.

"He's in," said she, dodging away from him. Dan looked after her with a frown, but she passed on without looking back.

"Bill," said he, "the team's ready."

"What's Bill care if 'tis?" inquired the sapient negro.

"Why, you'll just go with Dick and me and Jims."

"Where's Jims? Oh, I hear the brat 1 You'll go over to Savage's for a load; and so be up and stirring, old fellow, or the Captain himself'll be in your hair."

Poor old Bill grumbled bitterly to be ordered off just then, "but s'posed he must go." Dan passed on, and rousing Jims with a heavy kick, exclaimed --

"Get up here, you young scamp -- get off that blanket, you lazy cuss, or I'll tallow you. Don't you hear folks calling? If you don't get up in less than no time, I'll kick you into the fire where you'll finally go, if there is any. Hey?"

Jims was now thoroughly awake. Raising himself partly up, he encountered the fierce glare of Dan, who had so unceremoniously broken up his sleep, and for a moment quailed before it. But this was only for a moment. Springing to his feet, and staring back into the old pauper's eyes a fierceness equalling his own, he exclaimed --

"What do you want of me, old Brimstone, hey? Go to the devil, for all I care. Kick me, will you, old cider-drinker!"

"Yes, I'll kick your life out of you in five minutes, if you don't go about your bisness."

"Kick me again, old villain, and I'll get you horsewhipped. I've a right to sleep on the blanket if I get it first. You know it's none of yourn; nor's any thing in this d---- rotten old house yourn, if it's ever so poor."

"Well, you're under my orders, you young lout, and I tell you to be moving. Move! or I'll tallow you with a raw-hide."

"Move! I won't move a peg for you, old c----."

"You shall, you bastard; be off!"

"I won't!" And Jims doubled up his fists, and braced back against him. As for Dan, who liked this fun, he violently thrust forward both his brawny arms to seize and crush the youngster, when a blow from another arm behind him felled him to his knees. Just in time, Boyce had sprung up to rescue the lad; and now, as Pan slowly recovered himself, and with a look of savage ferocity, seemed meditating a thorough revenge on him for interfering, Boyce calmly informed him that if he advanced a step towards him he would annihilate him. The old rascal, however, seemed bent on making an assault, when aunt Dorothy planted herself between the combatants, and told them, with arms stretched out towards each one, that she would "have no fighting there!"

What power to restrain from it she would have had, we know not; but, perhaps fortunately for all parties, at this moment the form of Captain Bunce darkened the door, and Dick followed him with his cart-whip in his hand. The Captain, perceiving at a glance the true state of the case, snatched the whip from the hand of his son, and pushing Boyce aside, put the lash across the shoulders of Dan, and tingled Jims' sides with it, till they both begged for quarters, and promised to have no further dispute.

"Well, now, be off," said the Captain, "both of you; and if they make you any trouble, Dick, put on the lash. They know what their duty is; if not, I'll teach them. As for the rest on you," said he, "keep out of brawls. Better find steady employment, than spend the time in idle talk and wrangling. You'll get a short allowance for this, I'll promise you."

It was night before the men got back.

The team drove slowly into the yard. It consisted of two yoke of oxen, and old Roan the mare on the lead. Jims was on her back sitting sideways, his feet carelessly dangling by her side, his back curving like the new moon, and his chin resting on his hands. Dan plodded along behind. Bill was riding stowed in among the barrels.

"Well, Dick," said his father, "good luck, hey?"

"Have had a hard pull of it anyhow," said that worthy.

"What, with three or four barrels, and a little cider? Whew, Dick!"

"Three or four barrels! Thunder!"

"Yes, perhaps so, that's enough."

"We'll count them off, if you will."

The Captain grew black with anger, when he counted six barrels of poor beef on the load, a quantity sufficient for him two years.

"What's all this, Dick? What have you here, hey? Six barrels! By George, I'll not stand that any how. Savage knows I never bought six barrels of him."

"So I told him," said Dick. "He had seven barrels, but I refused to take any more than six, and told him we couldn't eat it in two years. But Savage swore you bought the lot."

"So I did the lot of three or four barrels, not all the beef in creation by any means. Six barrels!" and the Captain swore hard. "Well, well, roll it in. Only consider, Dick," said he in a whisper, "the more they eat of it the faster they'll die off."

"That's a true bill and no mistake," replied his hopeful one. "But it's plaguy disagreeable work to handle coffins. If it wan't for that, I'd just as lief they'd drop off one a week as any way."

"Never mind about the coffins, Dick; we get used to them, and the most I care about the beef, is the likelihood of having a lot on hand two or three years hence. The chances are that beef'll fall off ten per cent, before the year's up. I want enough of this feed only, to keep the folks along when other things' scarce you know -- not enough to pay interest on for all future time. Savage's a hard one any how, and to get a trade out of him, a man must look two or three ways for Sunday."

"What have you got there, Cap'n Bunce?" shouted a female from the open door of the large mansion. This individual was none other than Mrs. Bunce herself, stout, red-faced, loud talking, coarse and vulgar-looking Mrs. Bunce. The Captain to her inquiry said he'd got home a lot of beef from Savage's.

"Lot of beef from Savage's!" said she, "and is that all beef?"

"To be sure it is -- why not?"

"What you going to do with it, Cap'n?" said she approaching him.

"Why, you see, Mrs. Bunce," and the Captain spoke m a low confidential way, and nudged her a little delicate sort of a you-know-a-thing-or-two nudge in her fat arm, "this is cheap beef; it's just the sort of feed for the people over yonder, with now and then a good cut for the rest of us."

"Well, if this don't beat all my 'wife's relations,' Captain Bunce -- six barrels of poor beef!"

"True, but we can't afford good."

"No -- but six barrels! Why, Captain Bunce, you're crazy! All the poor folks in creation couldn't eat it in a year; and as for cooking it, the Lud knows I shan't." Poor Mrs. Bunce! "The Lord knows." Yes, He knows many things that seem hidden from us.

But Mrs. Bunce liked a joke. She wasn't so hard on the Captain, after all, as her words seemed. She had a thorough conviction of his supremacy, but was now and then a little assuming; just enough, at least, to give the Captain a homeopathic dose of uneasiness.

"Mrs. Bunce!" said the Captain, seriously.

"What?" said she, rather suddenly.

"I will take care of the beef!"

Mrs. Bunce looked up for an explanation. She looked into her husband's face: it was cold and resolved.

"Very well," said she. "Beef it is, poor beef, and enough on't."

Mrs. Bunce turned and went into the house. The beef was rolled into the cellar, and the paupers of Crampton were fated to feed on it.

One barrel was opened that evening; the next day the whole family made a dinner of it.

"It's tough," said the Captain to his spouse.

She nodded.

"It's lean," said Dick.

"Confoundedly so!" said Elisha.

"It's salt," said Betsey.

"I wish father hadn't bo't it," said Henrietta.

What said the paupers?

"It is impossible, with my poor gums, to eat this beef," said the widow Prescott.

"It is very hard and yellow," said Ebenezer Cowles and Mrs. Dodge.

"It'll bear munching a good while," said aunt Dorothy and Mrs. Rice.

"It's tough as bull's hide," said old Dan.

"It's poor folks' turkey," said poor Boyce.

"My teeth are good," said Jims, "but they crack some."

"Too salt," said Bill. "Good salt-water ham, yaw! yaw!"

On the whole, the beef was condemned at the first meal, and it grew no better very fast.

CHAPTER XI.
MAG DAVIS. -- Were it not for beautiful Woman in this world, we should not have half the respect for ourselves that we now exercise, nor would Society so rise to the dignity of an Institution. As it is, we highly congratulate ourselves, and as to Woman are strictly conservative.

WINTER approaching, the people of Crampton calked their doors and windows to keep out the cold; some banked up their houses, and closed the roll-ways with straw, leaves, and tan. New stoves, finely polished, were ordered; new furnaces, that warmed the whole house, were put up, or the old repaired with new grates, and put in order to heat up at a moment's warning. Abundance of fuel was laid in without regard to cost, and so garments were ordered, furs purchased. Winter arrangements complete were made on every side, because no man or woman with any thing of a competency would think of meeting the rigors of a northern winter unprepared.

There was one class of persons in the town, who, in a very imperfect manner, imitated this consistent example. We mean the poor-house class. Every body belonging to it folded the garments he happened to have on a little closer to him, crept a little nearer to the fire, and was thankful if the cold of December could be endured on gruels, pale cider, beef-bone soup, hard neck and grizzly pieces of beef, rusty pork and cheap beans, in quantities proportioned to the cost.

As the wintry weather pinched more and more, all the stragglers, one after another, who in mild weather wandered off and got their living -- some by begging, others by working a little, and some by stealing and light pilfering -- came in from their excursions, and took up with their old quarters at the poor-house. Among these came old Mag Davis, hag that she was -- an out and out piece of sinful and wretched humanity. So came in John and Polly Tucker, gipsies in their mode of life. And there were two or three orphan children, ragged and dirty and ignorant. Vicious women and wicked men came, and all who could make out a good claim on the town staid: others passed on.

The snow began to fall. Captain Bunce ordered out into the fields, and yards, and woods, all the hands who could be of any service, and made Bill and Dan, and Boyce and Tucker and Jims accomplish a good deal of work, while Mrs. Bunce compelled the women and more infirm men to help her about house. "You must work," said she, "or starve; we can't feed idle bodies."

In vain the poor creatures complained; work was good for them, and it cost a world of money to keep them. Captain Bunce could not afford to keep them if they were to render him no service. Captain Bunce discharged his hired man, and told Dick and Elisha to make "the folks" do his work.

A cold hard day closing in with snow and rain, gathered the miserable, wretched paupers into their hovel. Bu Jims dripping with rain and covered with snow, brough in some large armfulls of brush, chips, and a log or two which were cast on the fire. The flames flashed up into the chimney, and threw their bright light into the large, comfortless room. A single taper burned in an iron candlestick. The forms of the inmates seated singly and in groups, or lounging here and there, and moving through the room, cast shadows in very grotesque shapes along the soiled walls, and creaking floor.

On the whole, it was the happiest hour of the twenty-four for them, for the eating of the day was over, a rather self-denying operation, the labor was over, sleep was at hand. Yet the society was not entirely homogeneous, except in the one item of poverty, and as the elements of discord are not always absent in the best of families, how could they be thought always absent here, in a group of characters never before in their best days quite affiliating together? It is true, however, that common misfortune often makes common friends, and here were friendships grown and growing into some form and comliness, where the normal condition was one of repugnance. For instance, aunt Prescott was become every body's friend, and in her every other person learned to have some friendship for his fellows. Aunt Dorothy Prinsmade possessed some kindness of heart, and tried to serve her companions. All felt a community of sentiment, and regarded themselves at liberty to prey on the interests of the rest of the world. Their condition gave them little hope of ever rising above want, and to satisfy this, they bound themselves together to accomplish what they could. Yet not in form. They took no common oath, nor made any common plunder. It was in the feeling of the heart that they foraged on society, and bound themselves together, not in formal covenant.

It was seven o'clock. All the chores were done, the people all in -- but Roxy. She had slipped out, a wildish saucy faced girl, under-witted they called her, and sometimes uncontrollable -- she went and came as she liked. Neither for her, nor for any other one of their number was there ever felt any very great uneasiness of mind when absent, how long soever that absence might be continued. She has not a relative in the world that she can name, nor has she a solitary farthing in money.

Most of the company gathered near the fire, turning this way and that, to feel its genial heat, Jims industriously supplying fuel. They maintained quite a conversation among themselves, the general drift of which was in complaint of their present lot, or mourning over their departed happiness.

"How the cold comes in under the doors, and through that broken window," said Boyce, who had thrown himself on the old bed, and tried to cover up his shivering limbs.

"Jims," said he, "take my old hat and crowd it into that broken window, will ye? It's plaguy chilly here."

Jims did so, and at the same time heaped more fuel on the fire.

"It is a cold night, Mr. Boyce," said widow Prescott, "and a lot of poor souls like us feel it. For my part, I should have relished a cup of hot tea to-night; and I think it would have done you good."

"Hot tea, Mrs. Prescott!" said the other; "when the paupers of Crampton get what they like and need to eat and drink, somebody beside Captain Isaac Bunce will have the care of them."

"That's a fact!" screamed a voice in the rear of a group near the fire, which all knew to be that of Mag Davis. "That's a fact!" she exclaimed, coming forward a little, and sitting down on one of the old chairs near the foot of the bed -- "Captain Bunce's tea bill," said she, "won't swamp him, I'll swear."

Mag was an uncommonly hard and desperate character. Not that there never appeared another like her. This we do not mean, but that she was one of her own class, and that a very depraved one. Similar personages are now and then seen in all our public institutions. They have a character formed in the streets, formed in the schools of licentiousness and unrestrained self-indulgence. Mag Davis was once a handsome girl. All her youthful history we do not pretend to know. Write it we would not if known to us. Sufficient be it, that there is one record kept of every mortal life, and of her life of course. We know her as Mag Davis. She would pass for a female; her long dangling hair spoke this of her, and in her face were yet some feminine traceries -- enough to warm your heart to her, at least in compassion, if there were wanting nothing to deaden its emotions. But ugliness, recklessness, and ferocity mingled their expression in her face, and lurked in her eyes. She wore tattered and draggled skirts, and nothing in her person was more pleasing than in the character of her mind. She was an ugly old crone, yet she knew a great deal, and could converse with great fluency. And now she sat rather back in the group, at the foot of the bedstead, crowded partly into a corner, half hidden by the slouching form of John Tucker, drunken and debauched as he was, and Polly, his miserable, red-faced wife, who had both lately found winter quarters at the poor-house. Here, in the faintly lighted portion of the room, she sat and snapped her fingers in the air, higgling and hitching and swaying this way and that, jerking her head violently and spasmodically from one side to another, and often leading off, in a rapid, screaming voice, the conversation of the miserable and haggard wretches around her. Her conversational power, as we have said, was great. She could frame good sentences, and express them with an emphasis of earnestness that made one regard them, and with intonations of voice peculiar to well-bred ladies. But yet she was a polluted wretch. Her life had been one of criminal self-indulgence -- her associations vile and wretched. A female, without the grace of one -- with no outlines remaining of virtue, loveliness, attraction -- you saw her but with loathing. With squinting eyes she leered on you, and opened her toothless jaws to utter words.

Whatever character or position she may once have borne, she is now here, without delicacy, purity, softness, fear, love, or hope. She is one of the paupers of Crampton. The authorities have her in their charge. It makes no sort of difference with them what else she is, was, or might be. She costs the town so many dollars a year to keep her as she is!

Poor thing, though! She has a human soul and body, although these things are not, in her case, very well defined; and she is a lost, doomed one. She is as certain to die a forgotten, toothless hag, an old gone-by crone, a coarsely fed and shabbily dressed sinner, as ever certain was to any one of mortal name or kind. And prayers for the POOR in the church mean not such as she! Her class is forgotten -- is too hopeless -- is on the town -- is provided for already. Her class is the degraded one known only in law, not in charity -- a class sold to the public bidder -- sold out of Christian communities and Christian relationships, into the charnel-house -- sold to save church-going members, and all religious people of all religious denominations, if possible, one, two, or three per cent. additional tax on the grand list. Call not the poor-house we speak of a Christian institution. Its cruelties, its sufferings, its neglect, its forgotten, prayerless state point it out as one of the common and degraded institutions of selfishness, though planted in the very soil of New England.

"Hot tea and coffee, Mr. Boyce, you'll get enough of it in the other world," said Mag, rocking her body backwards and forwards, and crossing her feet. "But those things are only for the rich in this world. Poor folks must not complain if they have cold victuals. All that's wanted is to keep the life in them, no matter whether the blood is warm or not."

"It's a confounded lie," said old Dan, who was holding his place close to the chimney corner, and as usual chewing a large piece of tobacco. "Poor folks are's good as any body. Who cares for the rich? Burn down their house, and they are as poor as the rest ov us. And for my part, I love to see a good smart fire."

"Oh! pshaw, now, Dan, don't talk of incendiarism in your old age; one state prison job, I should think, would do for you," replied the hag.

"State prison's a palace to this rotten affair, and ten thousand like it. You never'11 deserve to go there, d--- you."

"It must be a grand place," said she, "it costs a great deal to educate folks there, especially so cursedly deserving ones as old Dan."

"Go to," growled that worthy and said no more.

Poor old widow Prescott! How she sighed as she saw and heard all this, and thought of by-gone days. But aunt Prescott was a good deal broken, and her sensitiveness not as formerly. Yet she groaned and turned away saying, "The Lord have mercy on us." Aunt Dorothy quietly smoked her pipe, and neither said anything nor offered a line of song.

As for poor Boyce the author, he was really unwell, and a little help would have done him good. He groaned on the bed, and said he was cold.

"Well now, the Lord bless you and send deliverance," said the good widow, trying to make him a little more comfortable. You shall have more clothes on your bed, and we'll heat a brick at the fire and warm your feet."

So saying, she brought a blanket from her own room, and threw it over him, and Jims got out of the ashes a warm brick, which they managed to roll up in a cloth, and applied to his feet. And this was scarcely done before the creaking outside door swung open, and the slight form of Henrietta glided into the room. She bore in her hand a bowl of hot tea, which she had prevailed on her mother to make, and send over to the "folks."

Aunt Dorothy, before unmoved, and careless, apparently, as to the condition of every thing around her, now suddenly laid aside her pipe, and jumping to her feet, exclaimed -- "The Lord's heard your prayers. Miss Prescott, and sent deliverance to Boyce, as he did of old to Peter, ha! ha!

"Drum, drum, drum; praise ye the Lord,
Drum, de drum, drum, dro; with one consent,
Drum, drum, dro."

"Mr. Boyce!" shrieked Mag, "your tea's come, and I believe the Lord's angels went right after it when they heard us talking. For my part, I always believed the angels had a mighty deal to do with us in this world."

"They've kept a good account of you, I'll swear!" grumbled Dan.

"Ha! ha! ha!" shrieked the hag -- "set a thief to catch a thief."

After Boyce had taken his tea, aunt Prescott covered him up as warmly as possible, and he declared he never felt better in his life. He really began to perspire, and soon fell into a sound sleep. Henrietta glided from the room and went home.

Still the evening's storm kept on, though not a very hard and driving one. It was winter's fore-paw, and with it he kept scratching at the windows and doors, and seeking for admission to every body's house and room.

Mr. and Mrs. Haddock, having thought all day of going over to the poor-house in the evening, were not prevented by the storm. As they turned from the street and passed an open lot leading to the gate of the grounds, they encountered Dick Bunce and Roxy, sauntering off together in high glee.

"A young rascal, bent on mischief, and sure to find it," said Mr. Haddock, when fairly past them. "And how do you all find yourselves to-night?"' he inquired, stepping in among the paupers.

The whole company started at the sound of his voice, as though it were the voice of a deliverer, and especially at the sweet words that fell from the lips of his wife, as she tenderly took the hand of Mrs. Prescott and embraced her, and went among them all with kindly and encouraging words.

"We are doing tolerably well, I believe," said Mrs. Prescott, "but the cold creeps in, and we feel it some in our poor bodies -- "

"Here's Boyce sick abed," shouted Mag, "but Boyce '11 come up again if he can have good care, and nourishing food and drink."

"Well, those he ought to, and shall have; how long has he been sick?"

"He's always ailing, you know, but he's been shaking and feverish about two hours -- and two hours is enough to end a pauper, you know, ha! ha! ha!"

"He is better, much better, Mrs. Haddock," said the widow, "since Henrietta brought him in a cup of hot tea."

"Did she, sweet girl!"

"The Lord's best blessing on her," said aunt Dorothy.

"Drum, drum, drum."

"She's Captain Bunce's best side," said Mag.

"We put a hot brick to his feet, too," said the widow; "see, he's asleep now, and in a good sweat."

"He has a good, warm blanket on him, too," said Mr. Haddock.

"Miss Prescott got that for him, off her own bed," said Mag, "and how in the world she's going to lie warm without it the Lord knows, not I."

"And so you don't have every thing here you could desire, after all?" inquired Mr. Haddock.

"We don't starve, sir, by no means, nor do we suffer the want of clothing as many do, but it is not as it once was," said Mrs. Prescott.

"You have good meat to eat once a day?"

"We have generally some meat," said she.

"Tough as the side of a barn," said Tucker.

"Salt as the sea," said Polly.

"Bought on a speculation," said Dan.

"Good enough," said Bill and Jims, "for poor folks."

"It'll last more than one generation," said Mag; "as for my eating it, I never'll eat a pound of it if I stay here a thousand years."

"What have you had to-day, Mag?" inquired he.

"Had! Hog's liver, and bone soup, and cider," said she.

"What's Boyce eaten?"

"Boyce has eaten his finger nails," said she.

"Has he had nothing?"

"Nothing he could relish. He drank a quart of cider, and just now two mugs of tea, but he has not eaten a bit of any food this twenty-four hours."

"Why don't he eat?"

"He can't."

"What's the reason?"

"Don't have the food he likes, I s'pose."

"Is he failing? Is he so sick he can't eat?"

"He's a slender body, sir, and can't endure as much as some of us can," answered the widow. "He really wants nursing, like a child -- a good and kind home -- good care, good and nourishing food, would save him."

"Give him some more beef -- Savage's beef," said old Dan. "That's what Captain Bunce calls hearty food and nourishing."

"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted Mag.

Boyce began to move and be disturbed in his sleep.

"Don't, for the world, wake him," said Mrs. Prescott.

And aunt Dorothy chimed in her lullaby, as follows:

"Drum, drum, drum, hush my dear,
Dro, di, dro, dro, dro, lie still and slumber --
Dro, drum, drum, drum, holy angels.
Battle, te drum, drum, drum, guard thy bed."

Mr. and Mrs. Haddock went softly to his bed and examined him. They found him evidently much sick, and requiring medical attention, as well as good and careful nursing. They resolved to remove him to their own house, if Captain Bunce was willing, on the morrow.

"Well, then, I see how it is, good people," said Mr. Haddock. "Sometimes you have enough to eat and drink, at other times are rather short, eh? Isn't it so?"

"Something so," said Tucker; "only the poor-house is never over well fed."

"No, no: so I understand. Well, how is it for warmth -- are you warm enough?"

"Can't say we are," said Bill. "The house is old, and fuel light -- clothes thin, rather -- nights long. We feel cold nights."

"Then yon don't have clothes enough? You ought to have a blanket or two, and some two or three comforters, to each bed."

"Whew!" screamed Mag. "That's more than we've all got -- ain't it, Dan?"

"Blankets and comforters are scarce in my quarters," said he, "the Lord knows."

"Cold weather has come on rather suddenly, you know, Mrs. Prescott," said Mrs. Haddock, "and perhaps the Captain isn't prepared yet to make every thing as comfortable as he will by-and-bye."

"We don't know how it is," said she, in reply; "but my trust is in the Lord of Hosts. I know that this is a suffering world. The Lord Jesus suffered here. He had no where to lay his head. How much are we the better off than he, the Lord of Glory!"

It seemed to flash like a new revelation from heaven into the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Haddock, that there was peculiar sin in suffering an institution so poorly (or badly) managed as this to exist among them; and that this old saint, and others like her, would rise up at the last as swift witness against them if they neglected to do their work of mercy and reform -- if they forgot the misery that some here suffered, who they believed were truly the children of God, and all undeserving the neglect of those who could relieve them. They resolved in the future to do more for them than they had done hitherto.

Jims now threw a fresh armful of brush on the fire, and a fine warm glow was diffused through the room. Just at this instant, who should blunder in but Captain Bunce, the merciful and humane landlord of this establishment! He was just enough in liquor to be good-humored and familiar, and did not at first observe Mr. and Mrs. Haddock.

"Well, now, I declare," said he, "if this isn't just the smilingest looking place I've been in for a week. Jims, give me a chair. -- Ah, Mr. Had -- dock -- and Mrs. Haddock! I vow, this is nice! Why, how in the world did you get out this stormy night? I'll be hanged if I ain't dreadfully obliged to you, and glad to see you. Draw up by the fire. Now, ain't this sort of cheerful? Jims, don't spare the wood; put on the best you can find, and 'nough on't. It's sort of cold out doors, but in here it's as warm and pleasant as a May morning. You see, our folks are pretty comfortable here, friend Haddock. Give me one of these large old-fashioned chimney fire-places, and plenty of wood, (Jims, put on the wood,) and it's a thousand times better than one of your modern six-by-eight close stoves for coal -- ha! ha! ha! Don't you think so, Mr. Haddock?"

"I don't like small stoves very well, I allow ," said he.

"You are just of my opinion," replied Bunce. "Stoves are unhealthy, coal is unhealthy, and every body is unhealthy who has any thing to do with them. Well, I'm right glad to see you, and you musn't say 'no,' you must both go in and make my wife a call when you leave. Here you see the 'folks' are all doing charmingly, all growing fat, and young, and sprightly -- how is it, Bill?"

"Yes, sir: bery?" said the black with a slight nod of the head.

"I thought so, ha! ha! ha!" shouted the Captain. "Well," said he, "suppose you just drop in and see us -- hey? -- eh, Mrs. Haddock, what say?"

"I have no particular objection, if Mr. Haddock can spend the time."

"Oh! hang the 'time.' 'Time' is nothing. I have more time on my hands than I want -- absolutely so now. Why, my evenings are often as long, and dull as Bill's face, and it does me good to see a friend."

"Before we leave," said Mr. Haddock, "perhaps you would like to see a little how Boyce is getting on, for he appears to be sick, and I understand you sent him in a nice cup of hot tea to-night."

"Did I, by jove, that's a new idea, ha! ha! I guess I did though, or, perhaps Mrs. Bunce and Hetty looked out for the poor souls. Boyce! Boyce! let's see, oh! the devil, yes, Boyce. He's a little in the dumps, but he'll rouse again in the morning as good as new. Aunt Prescott! how's Boyce?"

"He's doing better, sir, I think."

"Yes, that's the case," said the Captain, returning from his bedside. "You see he's all nice and warm, well blanketed, and fast asleep, doing well. He'll be as bright as a new cent in the morning; we keep the folks here, Mr Haddock, all warm and comfortable these cold nights."

"Then you aim to give them all a blanket, and warm bed-clothes?" said Mr. Haddock.

"Oh! -- of -- course we keep them well-to-do these cold nights. (Put on the wood, Jims.) We get on them just as much as the poor critters will bear."

"That's a lie," screamed Mag.

"So it is, by," said Dan and Tucker in a breath, and aunt Dorothy commenced a song forthwith.

At this moment the door suddenly flew open, and in came Dick and Roxy, in a half angry scuffle without noticing the company present.

The Captain, glad of any interruption, turned, and peremptorily inquired: "What's this mean, Dick?"

"Oh! nothing, only Rox and I have been on a gale this evening, and she's got my watch."

"Take your watch, hatefulness," said she, throwing it at him, and disappeared up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Haddock, perceived that Captain Bunce was too much intoxicated, to make it profitable to talk with him or to prolong their visit. Under the excuse of the storm too, as they all left the house, they declined his pressing invitation to call at his residence, and as fast as possible, made their way home.

The poor folks got through the night as they best could. Jims laid himself down by the fire on an old blanket, and kept the fire up through the night. Bill slept at the foot of the bed, and kept the sick man's feet warm.

During its dark hours, an emigrant ship from Liver- pool went ashore on the Jersey coast, a perfect wreck. Few were saved of either crew or passengers; among the latter, a lady and her child five years old, were res cued and taken care of, of whom we may hear more by and bye.

As soon as the storm subsided, Mr. Haddock conveyed Boyce to his own house, where under careful attention he in a little time began to amend.

CHAPTER XII.
The Ladies' Benevolent Society. Miss E. Flush, President.

One of those very common and very praiseworthy modes of doing good, which accomplish by association of effort what is seldom brought about by the individual alone, which one society of ladies takes up after another, and so the action of the whole is as leaven, leavening the mass -- one of these, we say, was in full and satisfactory experiment among the ladies of Crampton. It was two or three days, it might have been five, for it was on Friday evening that the storm came, and the ladies usually met on Wednesday -- call it five days then, after the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Haddock at the poor-house, that an unusually large number of ladies met at the house of Esquire Ben. Stout, prepared with thread and needles to do a great amount of sewing before they separated.

Mrs. Stout and her maiden sister. Miss Emeline Flush, particularly the latter, and Mrs. Stout's two daughters, Judith and Hope, were devotedly attached to this benevolent association. Not unfrequently they all went out and passed the afternoon session, and some of them the evening, let the meeting be where it might, industriously plying the needle, wielding the scissors, and imparting as well as receiving information on the great point of Christian benevolence.

It must be confessed that their aim and result were both alike good, and that the ladies generally were governed by the highest considerations in their enterprise. If they committed an error, it was in shooting beyond a point of necessity, and rendering help in one case to the neglect of another. But the Stouts, the Haddocks, the Phillips, the Boutwells, the Hayes, the Smiths, the Newcombes, the Scranneys, the Shires, and the Lincolns, were most of them regarded as sensible and benevolent minded families, some of the ladies living daily to do good to their fellow-men, with some perhaps trifling dissimilarity of views as to the mode. On the Wednesday we have specified, the society met at Esq. Ben. Stout's. Mrs. Haddock and her daughters arrived a little later than usual, on account of driving round by the poor-house on their way, to make particular inquiries about the winter clothing of the paupers. The room was full of ladies, and they were, as usual at these sessions, chatty enough.

Every body seemed very happy to see Mrs. Haddock and her daughters. They were indeed of great service in the society, Mrs. Haddock being one of the main officers, and a sort of right arm to the enterprise, while Frances, her eldest daughter, was treasurer and secretary of the society.

So the ladies fluttered around them on their arrival, and protested that they should have felt lonesome, and the work would not have been half done without them. Mrs. Stout said she never felt reconciled to it if Mrs. Haddock was absent when the ladies held their meeting, especially if it was at her house. And Mrs. Haddock never thought for a moment of not coming, she regretted being late, but was unavoidably detained. Jane Phillips, one of the sweetest girls in Crampton, folded her friend Frances Haddock in her arms, and in a snug corner of the room they plied their needles and chatted together for a long time.

Thirty or forty ladies, met together in a sewing circle, do a good deal of work. They also "work off" a large amount of conversation, and it is pleasing to be among them and to listen to the talk, if you cannot add to it.

"I am told," said Miss Flush, "that after we complete our present work, and fill this box for the missionaries, Mr. Longwell, the merchant, wishes the society to engage to sew for him the next three months."

"Why, Miss Flush!" exclaimed several voices.

"Is it possible!"

"Can it be true?" inquired others at the same time. "Yes," said Miss Flush, "he applied to me this morning, and said he had a contract with a city jobber for three hundred summer coats, pants, and vests, for the spring trade, and five hundred shirts and bosoms."

"Did you ever see such luck!" exclaimed several.

"It is most too good to be true," said others.

"It shows us," said Mrs. Haddock, "that if we are willing to busy ourselves to do good, we shall not be deprived of the opportunity."

"How true, Mrs. Haddock," replied Mrs. Ben. Stout.

"I wish we could go right about it," said one.

"How much will Mr. Longwell be willing to pay us for the work?" inquired Mrs. Phillips.

"Of course that will depend on the style of the sewing, and on the quality and cut of the garments. He will give us twenty-five cents each for shirts made in good style, with bosoms and wristbands, the work all. cut out; and twenty-five cents each for thin pants and vests cut, and fifty cents for best coats."

The ladies all stopped their work and listened during this recital, and resumed it again, with sundry exclamations; as Miss Flush finished speaking.

"It is a good deal of money, doubtless," said old Mrs. Hayes, looking over her spectacles, and furrowing up her forehead, as she smiled round the room; "but, ladies, when I was young, we never made a coat for less than a dollar, nor pants for less than fifty cents; while every body gave us fifty cents to make a shirt."

"Well, nobody gives now as much as formerly, you know, Mrs. Hayes," pleasantly put in Mrs. Stout. "Besides, the cloth is different, and the sewing is different. We hurry off work now-a-days; in those old times, it was a week's work to earn a dollar."

Mrs. Hayes said the times were different, she knew.

The ladies thought they could make something by Mr. Longwell's job, although the prices were low. It was a great relief to have the work all cut and ready for them; and besides, every one would know before hand just what work was to be undertaken.

"How much longer will it take us, Miss Flush," inquired Mrs. Haddock, "to finish our present work for the missionaries?"

"I do not know exactly. Shouldn't you think, Miss Lincoln and Mrs. Smith, that we might get this work done in two weeks?"

Mrs. Smith hadn't thought much about it. She now began to consider, and to reckon up and form her estimates.

"Why, Miss Flush," said she, "we have three pair of sheets made already; we have two pair of gent's pants, and three pair boy's pants, and two vests done. We have two ladies' dresses, two thick quilts, three flannel petticoats, four chemise, four night-gowns, six pair stockings, caps, gloves, thread, needles, shoes, embroidered slippers, two bed-blankets, one large bed-quilt -- these are all ready, you know -- and this one in the works. Then there are making four shirts, four under-shirts three pair stockings, ten towels, two children's frocks, and a silk mantilla. Yes, I should think -- shouldn't you, Mrs. Newton and Mrs. Phillips? -- I rather think in two meetings more we may get through. I haven't thought of it. What do you think. Miss Flush?"

Miss Flush thought they might in three, if not in two. So thought Mrs. Smith; and this seemed to be the prevailing opinion, all the ladies putting their work in their laps, and listening to Mrs. Smith's summary of their labors with opened eyes and mouths.

"Did you ever see such an amount of work done by the society before?" inquired Jane Phillips of her friend, Frances Haddock.

"It's a great deal, I tell you," said she, with a little shake of her head, and a soberish expression, as she plied faster and faster her needle.

"I do think," said Mrs. Newton, "that we shall make some good Christian missionary and his family very comfortable indeed, when our box is received by them."

"Undoubtedly!" exclaimed Mrs. Stout, in the fulness of her zeal and faith. Now Mrs. Stout kept running out and in all the time, as she was very busy with her servant and girls, preparing the ladies' tea. In some societies of this kind tea and biscuit are dispensed with, the ladies working hard and eating nothing, to save trouble and unnecessary charges. But it was not so here. Every lady at her house gave her friends a good tea; and that custom we, for some reason, seem to like best ourselves.

Mrs. Stout fully believed that the box of clothing, etc., etc., they were preparing for the missionaries, would do some poor individuals, laboring in much want and trouble, "a deal of good" -- full as much good -- as the labor cost to prepare it protracted through the last half of the year -- and so doubtless it might. Mrs. Stout gave her principal attention to this box of clothing for the missionaries, and was a little surprised, on coming into the room, to hear the ladies conversing about their own poor in the town.

Mrs. Phillips said there was a family in her neighbor hood of very decent people, who were sick and in rather reduced circumstances, who she knew were in want of clothing, and another family she had heard of who were short of provisions.

"Oh, well, Mrs. Phillips, the poor we always have with us, you know," said Mrs. Stout; "and for my part, I hope the ladies will let nobody suffer; though it seems to me we had better get off the box before we attempt to do much for any other persons."

"It is true that we may weaken all our plans by having too many," said Mrs. Phillips; "but as it is now cold weather, and they immediately need some help, I think we had better consider their case, especially as we do not know where the box is to be sent; and it is somewhat doubtful whether it will now get forwarded at all till the spring opens."

"Oh, let us labor in hope, dear Mrs. Phillips," said the other. "Nothing casts a greater gloom over a society than discouraging intimations of that sort. Now I firmly believe the box will be immediately despatched -- the committee are so much in want of clothing, and are so pressing in their demands. But, dear me! I forgot my -- "

And away flew Mrs. Stout to look after her scorching biscuit.

The discussion of the poor families in town went on; and it saddened the heart of Mrs. Haddock as the theme changed to that of fashions and dress in particular, to see how entirely forgotten were the wretched, miserable paupers at that very moment suffering the ills of poverty in the poor-house of Crampton.

When the conversation allowed it, she informed Miss Flush that one reason why she had inquired about the time that would be required to complete the missionary work, was from a desire that the ladies might afterwards, if they saw fit, do some work for "that other class of poor people in town, quite often overlooked, the town paupers."

"The poor creatures!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Newton, Miss Lincoln, Miss Flush, both the Misses Scranney, and Mrs. Shire.

"I forgot entirely there were any such persons among us," said Miss Flush, the president of the society.

"And I am sure I never considered that it was our duty to look after the town poor," said Mrs. Shire.

"No, nor I," said Mrs. Smith. "Does not the town support them, Mrs. Haddock?"

"The town nominally takes care of the paupers," said she. "It pays Captain Bunce so many dollars a year to support them; but it makes no adequate provision for their enjoyment and comfort."

"Why, I am utterly surprised to hear of that!" said Mrs. Newton. "My husband has repeatedly, time and again, informed me that the town was very generous in its support of the poor. He says it is a great tax on the people, and that they feel it."

"I don't know how that is," replied Mrs. Haddock, "but I do know that the poor in that institution have been, many of them, in circumstances far more comfortable than they now are -- as the widow Prescott, for example, whose husband was once a deacon in this church -- and that they now are in great want of the most common clothing, of nourishing food, and comfortable rooms; in short, of every thing to make life to one of us desirable."

Mrs. Stout had again entered. She was overwhelmed at the statement. Her husband was one of the overseers of the poor, and she didn't know how many, many times he had told her, that the paupers were leading a very comfortable life of it for them. "He always said, however," she continued, "that they were a rather depraved set of beings, and past hope, that we couldn't do much, if anything to improve them."

"Mrs. Stout," said her friend, "I have been among them often. I called there to-day, on my ride here. I know that they are in the most pitiable plight in the world. It is true that many of them are morally depraved, and almost hopeless of good, perhaps entirely so as they now are, but among them there are very decent persons, whose greatest crime is that they are unmeasurably poor, and friendless, and weak-minded. They are as low in poverty as any body can ever get in this world, being wholly dependent on charity for every comfort or necessary they enjoy. We have by great exertion induced Captain Bunce to allow us to take home one of the sick men, Mr. Boyce -- you don't know him, do you?"

Every body was silent -- no one seemed to recollect the name.

"True," she went on to say, "you don't know him. But in our village library, and on more than one of your parlor tables, ladies, I have seen a popular work, of which he is the author -- at the present time, without a change of clothes, without flannels, without good shoes, or hat, with nearly worn out coat and pants, in poor feeble health, and weak in mind, Boyce is one of the paupers. We have him now under our roof."

Mrs. Hays raised both her hands and eyes in astonishment, so did Mrs. Newton, Miss Flush, Miss Lincoln, and every other lady, for Mrs. Haddock enjoyed their confidence and respect. They all again, and again, protested their utter ignorance of any such circumstance of poverty among them, and showered on Mrs. Haddock their thanks for taking care of him. They had no idea there was any particular suffering there, the more especially as Captain Bunce was said to be a very humane sort of a man.

"It is true of them, my friends," said Mrs. Haddock, "that they all want warmer under-clothing than they now have, and warmer bedding. They are very poorly protected against the approaching cold weather, having nothing to wear, that is different from their fall and summer clothing. And we know that such feeble and aged persons cannot live so."

The conversation was interrupted, by the arrival of the pastor with his wife. The usual salutations were forthwith gone into, and a happy smile diffused itself over the group, as the new comers exerted themselves to say something agreeable to every one. Nor had they been long present, ere Mrs. Stout again, and again appearing, now announced 'tea.' The whole company gathered around the well loaded tables of Mrs. Stout, and Mr. Rodman, their pastor, implored the Divine blessing. Then as afterwards in his prayer, he was careful to remember the poor, on whom he implored the best mercies of heaven. But it was evident to Mrs. Haddock, and to nearly every other lady present, whose mind had been aroused to think of the paupers, that his petitions had no reference whatever to them, but to the worthier poor in the families about town, or to the great family of poverty, represented, not in the tangible poor-houses, but in the mere idea of poverty, which the mind is wont to indulge on that subject. "We in our prayers for the poor," thought she, "pray either for those we cannot reach, a class of humanity in the abstract, or for those among us, but little our inferiors, to assist whom confers honor on ourselves. We overlook the poor who cannot recompense us again."

When a fit opportunity offered, she again brought up the subject, and particularly to the notice of her pastor.

"Well," said he, "this is a singular state of things indeed. I have long been aware of the incongruity of our poor-house system and our Christian benevolence, but I have never seen the thing exactly right, have never felt, acted, prayed aright over it."

"We have all, Mr. Rodman, too much overlooked this class of our fellow-beings. If they are old offenders and morally vile, they are still worthy of Christian commiseration and effort. And certainly there ought to be some arrangement to separate the more depraved and hardened of both sexes from the society of those who are simply the victims of misfortune, without any loss of virtuous and moral principle -- and especially ought the more youthful, the boys and girls, to be kept separate from the older inmates who are vulgar and profane."

Mrs. Haddock told the ladies that if they were willing to devote any time to relieve the wants of the poor by sewing, she should be happy to unite with them, and would invite them to her house. Several professed a willingness to do so. But Miss Flush thought the ladies had better finish the missionary box first, and in this opinion some others warmly coincided. Mrs. Shire, a little aside, declared that as for the old paupers, they were a miserable, swearing, drinking set any way, and she had seen enough of them. Many of the ladies, however, promised immediately to send Mrs. Haddock parcels of second-hand clothing for them, and this promise was not entirely broken. She was able to make several of the poor creatures far more comfortable than they had been, through the liberality of her friends.

But Mrs. Haddock was not permitted to have the whole ground to herself. By-and-bye in came Mr. Ben. Stout himself, first selectman of Crampton, overseer of the poor, etc., etc. Of course Mr. Stout knew every thing that any body else did about the paupers, and a little more -- certainly much more than any lady of the town could be supposed to.

Rev. Mr. Rodman appealed to Mr. Stout in behalf of the poor, and asked if something more could not be done for them.

"As for that matter," said he in reply, "there is a great deal of what we may call mawkish sympathy expressed in behalf of these paupers. Now we must admit that they are human beings. This is an evident truth. Secondly: They are poor and miserable. No one can deny this. Thirdly: They have made themselves so -- almost equally a self-evident truth. Fourthly: They need help. Now, in my opinion, these are the important points in their history, and cover the whole ground. Out of this summary grows the following idea, viz., 'It's the duty of the town to support the paupers.' We come, then, to view the matter from this very clear point, and we see that what is the duty of the town, is not the duty of the individual. So, as an individual, I feel no responsibility in this case. As a member of the community, I give my vote to lay a tax sufficient to answer all the reasonable charges of this unfriended class of persons, and commit the keeping of them, for a valuable consideration, to A, B, or C, as the case may be. If, then, I have done my duty as a man of the community, what further call can there in reason be made on me, eh?"

"Ah -- well -- er --" said the minister, being a little befogged.

"Yes, you see it's just here. They are hopelessly poor, and want boosting all the time. Now we can't be always running after them. They are done with. Society can't expect any thing further from them. And all we can do, you know, Mrs, Haddock, it's about so, after all -- all we can do, is to put them where they'll be, on the whole, in a comfortable sort of a condition; eh, say so?"

Mrs. Haddock couldn't bear that their clergyman should carry away just that impression of the paupers from so respectable a source likewise, and she answered Mr. Stout as a Christian woman should.

"But, my dear sir, these are our own fellow-beings. They are poor and dependent, I admit, and are, some of them, even vicious and ill-deserving; but ours is a duty not so easily surrendered to the town, as you seem to regard it. We certainly, as a town, are in duty bound to take care of them, and to show them such care as is worthy the name; but as individuals who receive daily mercies from God, and mercies we do not, nor can deserve, we are bound to reach out to them the helping-hand, and to make their path to the grave as comfortable as lies in our power."

Mr. Rodman assented to this. He now began to get the fog a little from his eyes, and his heart began to respond to the earnest pleadings of gospel mercy. But Esq. Stout maintained that we might feel too deeply, and do too much. "The fact is, Mrs. Haddock, where'll you stop? There must be some stopping-place, you know. , Now give old Tucker and Polly a new dress to-day, and they'll want another to-morrow. Give Jims a new suit this fall, and he must have another next spring. And so you go on: no stopping-place, you see, if you once begin."

"Then ought we to begin at all, Mr. Stout, if we can not pursue our intentions to the end? I do not see how the town may feel liberated from a full and proper care of the poor, if it assumes it at the first."

"It is something so," said the Squire. "And I -- am -- rather of the opinion -- that is -- I have been so -- that you will find, on inquiry, that our poor folks are, on the whole -- you understand, we must lump these things, you know -- about as well cared for as the poor ever are -- or can be. It costs the town seven hundred dollars to take care of them: that's a large sum in these days. And really, Mrs. Haddock, what do they want?"

This was said with such an earnest manner, and betrayed so true ignorance of their real condition, that she replied, directly --

"They want the very things the town pays for!"

The countenance of Squire Stout immediately fell. His conscience told him she was right, and that the town had bargained for the support of its helpless poor, to take suitable care of them -- meaning good and kind care -- but that its chief desire, after all, had been to hire them out, so as to cost the town the least possible sum, so as to be sure of hearing nothing further of them.

"Yes," said she -- and all the other ladies listened, and now and then said a few words -- "the town, Mr. Stout, Welshes them kept in a suitable manner, and pays seven hundred dollars that they may be so kept. But is it fulfilling the contract to pinch them in fuel, bedding, nursing, and medicine, and to feed them on the coarsest of beef, and the very worst pieces of the slaughter-house? on unmerchantable ham and pork, on tainted butter, and food, in general, revolting to the taste? But the poor here, and every where in similar circumstances, are so kept."

"Oh -- well -- hang it, Mrs. Haddock -- but then, you see -- they are a plaguy ugly set to have any thing to do with. And God -- in mercy to them, as I think -- has made them less sensitive to these matters than other folks are, so they wouldn't mind it at all -- as we may say -- if -- that is, I rather think so -- if somebody didn't tell them of it. Don't you think so, Mr. Rodman?"

Like all clergymen, Rev. Mr. Rodman felt himself a sort of town pauper, dependent on the salary which the good will of his people gave him. That salary was small enough, in all good reason, as he well knew, to meet his wants; but it was better than none, and he honestly believed it was fairly his due. Squire Stout was one of his particular friends, and he did not like to differ from him in a point where the Squire might be supposed to have some sensitiveness. On the other hand, Mrs. Haddock was also one of his particularly kind friends, and a lady of very great superiority of character. He did not know at first what to say, and he was on the point of taking the usual course of half this and half that, attempting some pacificatory remarks, when he encountered the mildly beaming eye and calm, expressive countenance of his own wife, who sat at her ease among the ladies, a little at the other side of the room. Mr. Rodman was not the only one who, in like circumstances, has felt a wife's support; even though she may not offer a word, her look has often been enough to strengthen the heart of one who trusteth in her. And so Mr. Rodman, as he encountered the calm, yet speaking countenance of his wife, read there in an instant his duty, and replied, as any man ought --

"I think, Squire Stout, that it is our duty to befriend them, to repent of our indifference to them, and for the future, to treat them as though they were bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. They certainly deserve from this Christian community every degree of attention consistent with our means; and so far are they, in my opinion, from wanting in sensitiveness on this point, they feel, more than any body else can feel for them, their degradation and sufferings."

Mrs. Rodman rewarded her husband with a smile and a tear. Mrs. Haddock and Mr. Stout prolonged the conversation awhile, the latter affirming that there must be some mistake in Mrs. Haddock's estimate of their sufferings and destitution, because Captain Bunce was a merciful and humane man. He however said that he would, some time or other, call down and see him, and look over the establishment.

After this, the ladies became interested in some village gossip, chatted merrily with the gentlemen who arrived, estimated their missionary work, as usual, at a high figure, and laid many a plan for the future building up of their society through the instrumentality of the needle. Every body said it had been a most interesting society-day, and so one by one the party left.

"And who are all these grand folks, I wonder, flourishing about with their fur caps, and bonnets, and buffalo skins, and fine sleighs and tinkling bells? "Wonder if they ever think of poor folks? Wonder if they ever was poor? Wonder if they ever had a father or mother to take care of them? They don't care for me, I know; nor do I care for them. They are proud, I know; they are rich, I s'pose. But who makes them rich? Wonder if they'd be rich if I were to burn down their houses? Good mind to; they don't prize their houses. They don't deserve them, neither, as I can see. What do they care for poor Bojce or aunt Prescott? "Who cared for Joe? Nobody. Mag says they are mean. Who cares for Jims? Who gives him any thing but kicks and sneers? Jims's as good as any on 'em. Here's a match I I'm almost minded to burn down this shed and store! I can set it a-fire -- nobody'll see me -- nobody'll care. Here's some straw; it'll blaze in half a minute. I will!"

The poor neglected Jims -- for it was he -- strayed off from home, and shivering under a shed, among the horses, where he had a view of the people going to and coming from this festive society, thus soliloquized and reasoned. The boy had never done any thing so bad as this which he now began to contemplate. He had committed little thefts, and been guilty of sundry smaller wicked actions; but now he took the match in his hand, impelled by the spirit of evil, and stealthily approached the corner of the shed where he had observed the loose straw. He was acting wildly, against his conscience, but in accordance with his hatred and revenge. Just as he stooped down to light the match, the low growl of a dog half covered in the straw arrested him, and caused him to start back.

"Poor dog!" said he, "I don't want to disturb you, I wouldn't burn your house down for the world. You and I are somewhat alike. And see how the poor dog whines now! He seems glad that I won't hurt him. Perhaps the dog knows me! Wonder if he's heard my thoughts! Dogs, they say, are knowing." And then a rooster on the beam overhead crowed, and the hens rustled as though disturbed; and another dog in the neighborhood set up a piteous, moaning bark. Jims was startled. He cast the match into the snow, and pulling his cap over his face, and his loose roundabout closely to his body, rushed out into the open air, and as fast as possible made his way to the poor-house.

Arrived there, he threw himself panting on the rude bed in the kitchen, by the side of Bill, and rolling himself all up that no body might see him, after a long, long time, in which he vowed he would never do anything so wicked again if he lived a thousand years, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII.
FIRE. Water is the natural element with which to oppose fire. The circumstances must be quite unfavorable, therefore, when it remains unextinguished even in the presence of this agent.

"What do yon think the town of Crampton 's coming to, when a poor tax of two per cent. isn't enough to keep the paupers, eh?" inquired Mr. George Shire of his neighbors, Mr. Peter Newcombe and Timothy Smith.

"For my part," said Mr. Newcombe, "I say it's a plaguy shame. If two per cent, on the grand list of Crampton ain't enough to support the wretches, let them get their living elsewhere, or beg or starve -- two per cent.! Why that's enough to buy a farm. It raises eight hundred dollars, and I regard it all as about so much thrown away."

"Yes," said Mr. Smith, "all them folks down thar is a pack of scamps. They's had good times once, and now 'cause they're poor the town of Crampton must jest fork over and pay expenses. It's darned hard for poor and honest citizens to pull out their own eye teeth for sich stuff."

"Well, they say," continued Shire, "that we've got to come to it and pay more."

"Who says so?" inquired Smith.

"There's Haddock, you know" --

"Haddock! Go to thunder," said Newcombe.

"Haddock and Phillips are always grumbling," said Smith.

"The women are wide awake, they say," said Shire.

"Blast the women, I say," said Newcombe.

"They're always meddling about things they don't understand," said Smith. "But I can tell you of one woman who don't go for more charity to paupers, that's Mrs. Smith."

"Good!" said Newcombe. "But my wife has got indoctrinated some how or other, and thinks it's a sin (!) to show charity to any body else under the sun before we look out for our own poor."

"Pshaw! pshaw! Got that notion at the sewing society. These sewing societies, I begin to think, are bad things," said Shire. "They lead the women to 'go it blind' into benevolence, and if any body says a word to the contrary, why he's little better than an infidel, even if he belongs to the church."

"You can't get along now-a-days," said Smith, "without running every thing into religion. The minister and the church take it up. I shouldn't wonder if our minister got hold of this thing next, and went to preaching on it."

"Why, he has already got hold of it," said Shire, "my wife tells me that he and Squire Ben had the warmest talk on it, at the sewing society there, she ever heard."

"Well, ministers had better let such things alone," said Newcombe. "What business is it to them?"

"It ain't gospel preaching," said the other, "to find fault with the town about paupers, ha! ha! ha!"

(ALL.) "Ha! ha! ha!'

"No, by thunder," said Smith. "Guess he's a man of too much sense, to bring it into the pulpit, any how."

"If he does bring it into the pulpit, my word for't the town won't stand it," said Shire. "I kept the poor one year myself, you know? Glad enough, was I to get rid of them. They're a squalid, dirty, profane, drunken, broken-down set of old c---s, as ever trod the face of the earth. As for deserving more help and a world of pity, now I know better. And I'm the last man that'll vote another cent to keep them."

"I'm another," said Smith.

"And I, ditto," said Newcombe.

"There goes that little scamp, Jims Tucker," said Shire. "He's off now on some plundering excursion, I'll bet you a dollar. Hulloa! Jims. How goes the times at Captain Bunce's, eh?"

Jims, a poorly dressed tall boy of twelve years of age, with a slouching hat, and a hanging look about him, drew up at this address, and feeing Mr. Shire, looked him straight in the eye, and answered, "First rate, sir, got a flogging this morning."

"Got a flogging, did you, what's that for, eh?"

"Oh, for grumbling and sauce."

"Then you think you deserved it, eh? Well, it's half to own up, Jims. Who flogged you?"'

"Well, Captain Bunce ended it."

"'Ended it,' who began it, pray?"

"Mistress Bunce herself, said she'd teach me to hook chickens, ha! ha! ha! good."

'"Hook chickens?'"

"Yes-- Why?"

"You don't steal chickens, I hope?"

"How in the world shall we get 'um then? We don't own any birds. We've got no money to buy 'um. How shall we get 'um?"

"Then let them alone."

"Yes, and the foxes would steal them then."

"And do you call yourself as mean as a fox?"

"I wish I was half as cunning, by George, wouldn't I have a chicken now and then: golly, I would."

"Well, Jims, you have enough to wear, and enough to eat, now-a-days, I believe."

"All I've got or want to wear, is what you see on me, and we have every day some of Savage's salt beef, that wants pounding on an anvil under a trip hammer, before it can be eaten. The old sow died last week, and we're smoking her shoulders and hams for us now. The Captain says we need good, hearty, substantial food."

All the men laughed heartily at this, but Jims was sober.

"Where you going now, Jims?" inquired Shire.

"Going a fishing," said the boy.

"'Fishing?'"

"Yes, up to the old pond, through the ice."

"What for?"

"For Mr. Boyce -- he that's sick, you know."

"Boyce! sick I and so forth, and so forth," ejaculated Shire. "Who's Boyce, pray?"

"Don't you know Boyce, the great author?"

"Well, if I do, I've forgotten about him. How long's he been there? How old's he?"

"He's been there two or three years, I s'pose. He ain't very old -- not over thirty or fifty, I reckon."

"Oh, well, I don't seem to recollect the dog. He's a state-prison fellow, ain't he?"

"No, he ain't a 'state-prison fellow,' nor a 'dog,' either, you old scamp. He knows as much as a dozen like you, and Mr. Haddock's trying to get him well."

"Just none of your sauce, boy, to me," said Shire, shaking him by the collar, "or I'll give you another flogging that'll make you stand round. Do you hear? I know you of old, you little villain!"

Jims gave a sudden spring as Shire said this; and leaving a portion of his garment in his grasp, fled out of his reach, and catching up a stick or club that lay on the snow, hurled it at him with all the strength of his arm. Shire was obliged to dodge quickly to avoid it; and before he could seize and throw it back, the wild boy had dodged behind a house, and was swiftly bounding away over the fields.

"A vicious, good-for-nothing young devil!" said Shire. "I know him well, and his mother before him."

"Who was she?" inquired Newcombe.

"She was old Tucker's daughter, Annie Sue, who died in the poor-house the year the paupers were in my hands. She was a roving, hard thing, and Jims is just like her. Somebody's his father, but nobody owns him I believe. He's a young villain, any how."

In an hour from this, Jims had reached the frozen pond, and with a hatchet, concealed under his round-about, had cut a hole in the ice large enough to fish. He had borrowed a fish-line of a boy in the neighborhood, and determined to catch some trout for Boyce, and take them to him at Mr. Haddock's.

Long and carefully the boy watched for his wily victims; but at length he caught two or three fine fish, weighing, one of them, more than half a pound; and ere nightfall, he had reached in safety the house of Mr. Haddock.

It is unnecessary to say that poor Boyce rejoiced to see them. Every body admired the trout, and Jims felt a thousand times rewarded for his long, cold tramp and watching to procure them. Jims received something more than thanks, too, and was sent home only after eating a hearty supper, which he devoured with the eagerness of a hungry wolf.

It was past nine o'clock when the boy left Mr. Haddock's. He hurried on towards the poor-house; and as the snow was not deep, took a cross cut that led him close by Captain Bunce's lower barn, filled with hay and grain. Young cattle were in the yard, and a well-beaten path led right from it to the house. Just as the boy was about to turn the corner of the large stone wall and get into the path, he observed a man stealthily creeping through the bars, and then hastily hurrying along the path towards the house of Captain Bunce. The night was not so dark but that Jims could see his precise form and movements. He knew in a moment who the man was; and to avoid him, made a new path for himself to the main road in another direction, through the untrodden snow. As he leaped over the fence into it, he encountered Dan slowly plodding his way homeward, with a bag of cold victuals slung over his shoulder, the proceeds of a day's work of begging.

The two paupers made their way into the poor-house, and raking open the hot ashes in the fire-place, were warming and drying their feet when they were startled with the cry of "Fire!"

This is always, especially in the country, a very exciting, as it is there a somewhat unusual alarm. It awakens from sleep every body in great terror, and all, both men and women, hurry in the greatest trembling to the scene of the conflagration. And when there, they do little besides look on and utter exclamations of surprise and sorrow at the occurrence. The alarming cry of "Fire! fire! fire!" began in the neighborhood of it, soon had its echo and reecho on every side. And away it rolled to the village, and soon the bells of the town took it up, and all Crampton was astir and pell-mell for the locality of the startling scene. Riders in sleighs and on horseback hurried away at fullest speed, crying, as they rode and ran, "fire! fire! fire!" Men and women and boys hurried along on foot, venturing opinions as to where and what the fire was, and how and when it broke out, who caused it, and what the motive was. And in a very short space of time there were four or five hundred people gathered around the burning pile, who could do little else than look on as the flames fiercely consumed the building, reducing it in an incredibly short time with all its contents to ashes.

The building thus destroyed was Captain Bunce's lower barn, filled with hay and grain, and having some young cattle in the yard, which were driven out through the bars by the first who arrived on the premises. So the loss was confined to the hay and grain, and the building. There was an insurance on the whole, but Captain Bunce thought only about half enough to save him.

Before many of the people had arrived on the ground, some curious persons, always on the alert to spy out and detect the parties in transactions involving criminal conduct, had observed in the snow the fresh tracks made that very evening by Jims, in his return home from Mr. Haddock's.

Rumors were of course rife that the fire was the work of an incendiary. Captain Bunce knew of no body visiting the barn that evening with a lantern or any light whatsoever, and it was generally conceded that the barn had been fired by some one with evil intentions.

It was very easy, of course, to identify the foot-tracks of Jims, and he was suspected and believed to have caused the fire.

The agents of the insurance company came the next day on to the ground, and settled with Captain Bunce the amount of damages he should receive, if every thing appeared satisfactory in regard to the manner of the fire. The policy of insurance was for nine hundred dollars, three hundred on the barn, three hundred on the hay, and three hundred on the grain. As the Captain couldn't positively swear to the amount of hay and grain, he was content to call the whole loss seven hundred dollars. This showed that he was fully insured.

Poor Jims! What a dismal condition he was now in! How many circumstances all lay flatly against him! The motive? Revenge for the flogging he had received, and for other instances of ill treatment. The proof? His absence in the evening; his return just before the fire occurred; his track in the snow to the barn-yard wall, and thence to the street; his own confession that he returned at that hour across the field; the testimony of Mr. Haddock, unwillingly given, that he left his house at the time specified.

Jims had now enough to sadden him, and almost drive him to despair. He was shut up by himself, and compelled to reflect long and bitterly on his unhappy condition. But there were two sources of comfort that he enjoyed, and they contributed very much to carry him calmly through his trial. The first was the full consciousness of his innocence. He knew, absolutely, that of the crime with which he was charged he was not guilty. The second was the reflection that, only a short time previously, he had made a firm resolve, having escaped a temptation, that he would never do an act of this nature if he were to live a thousand years. So it had never entered his thoughts to fire the barn.

At the very first of the suspicions against Jims, Mr. Haddock had sought him out, and in a private interview had drawn from him a full recital of the whole day's history, including the circumstance of seeing a man stealing out of the barn-yard as he was ready to pass it. He also obtained the name of the person, but enjoined it on Jims by no means to mention it, or the fact of seeing him, till he should direct. Mr. Haddock was fully persuaded of the boy's innocence. How to make it appear, was a work of some study.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE Little Incendiary. Be very careful how you stand up for an Incendiary. The Partaker is as bad as the Thief, you know.

Of course, the next two or three days there was a good deal of talk about the burning of Captain Bunce's barn. That it was the work of an incendiary, no one seemed to entertain the least doubt; while the general opinion was equally decisive, that the cause of all the trouble was the vicious young pauper, Jims Tucker.

Before the insurance company was willing to pay over even the seven hundred dollars agreed on as the amount of damage to the Captain, they insisted on an examination before a justice of the peace. Accordingly, although Captain Bunce was willing to waive this, and rather thought by taking up with seven hundred it would not be pressed -- the Captain shrinking from public notoriety! also being a merciful and humane man! But an examination was ordered, and it was held, with all due legal forms, before Squire Ben Stout.

The object of the insurance company by the examination, was simply to ascertain whether Captain Bunce was directly or indirectly concerned in firing the barn -- not to ascertain the guilty party, if other than he, and procure a conviction. And they, in prosecuting their inquiries, were especially anxious to save themselves the payment of the loss.

Accordingly, Captain Bunce was called to the stand, and put through a very rigid examination.

"You were insured, Captain Bunce, in the company, on your barn, for nine hundred dollars?" said Lawyer Ketchum.

"On the barn and contents -- yes."

"True -- yes. Well, sir, would this cover the whole value, at any one time, since the policy was made out?"

Lawyer Tools objected. This was "a leading question involving Captain Bunce's private pecuniary concerns: it could not properly come up."

Lawyer Ketchum wished "to know what this investigation was ordered for, if not to look into a question of a pecuniary nature. Was not the whole subject a pure case of dollars and cents?"

The Justice thought "the question must be answered." So Captain Bunce replied, that "it might cover it and it might not."

"Precisely, then, you think it might cover it?"

"Yes, sir, and it might not."

"What do you mean by that. Captain Bunce?"

"Why, that if I had fifteen hundred dollars' worth in the barn, it wouldn't cover it."

"That seems highly probable. But did you ever have fifteen hundred dollars' worth of hay and grain in the barn at one time?"

"Well -- I should fly -- that -- it was rather -- rather doubtful."

"Doubtful, eh?"

"He means to say -- " said Lawyer Tools.

"No matter what he means to say; we understand him," said the other lawyer.

"Oh, well, Ketchum, give a man a fair chance," grumbled Tools.

"Then what do you mean. Captain Bunce, when you say it might not cover the loss?"

"Well, that possibly there might be more stuff in the barn than the policy would cover."

"That is, more than nine hundred dollars," said Ketchum.

"Now, Captain Bunce, be so good as to tell us how much hay there was in the barn -- how much rye, how much corn, how much oats and straw, and so forth."

Captain Bunce couldn't recollect precisely, but according to his best belief and knowledge, there were twenty tons of hay, one hundred bushels of rye, two hundred and fifty bushels of corn, and one hundred and seventy-five bushels of oats. The Captain stuck at this all the way through, having that very morning cast up this amount, as making out the sum of nine hundred dollars, calling the barn worth three hundred.

Had he sold any? None of any account. Had he fed out any hay? Very little. Why did he offer to take seven hundred? To do the right thing with the company.

"Captain Bunce!" (A long pause.)

"Yes, sir," said the Captain, looking ready to answer.

"Well -- did you on the night of the fire have any occasion to go to the barn with a cigar, lantern, match, or other lighted material, or means of fire?"

"Not to my best recollection."

"You did not even go to the barn that day or evening, eh?"

"I presume I went to it in the course of the day."

"Yes, but not in the evening? Not after dark, you are sure?"

Lawyer Tools interposed to say that this was crowding his client and friend, Captain Bunce, and he should object to the question.

Justice Stout considered the matter, and rather thought Captain Bunce must, on the whole, answer that question. Lawyer Tools thought that it might be best to call a man guilty and prove him so afterwards.

Captain Bunce said he did go there after dark.

"Yes; you say you did go there after dark. Now, Captain Bunce, did you or did you not take any fire with you to that barn?"

"Not any at all, sir; I went down to see if all was safe, and did not go into the barn. I often -- generally do so."

"Did any of your family go down in the evening?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Did any of the paupers -- I believe you have the town poor on your hands, Captain Bunce -- did any of the poor folks go down?"

"We shall show that," said Lawyer Tools.

"Never mind, sir, perhaps we can," retorted Ketchum.

"Gentlemen may as well pursue a straightforward course," interposed Justice Ben Stout.

"Well, Captain Bunce, have you any idea how that fire occurred?"

"Of course he has an 'idea,'" said Tools. "What evidence is that?"

"Yes, I have an 'idea,'" said Captain Bunce.

"Never mind the idea -- never mind that now," said Ketchum.

"Have you any well grounded proof that the barn was set on fire?"

Captain Bunce said he had, the best in the world. He believed, he almost knew it was set on fire by Jims, the town pauper, because he (the Captain) had flogged him. The boy's tracks were seen in the snow. He had been absent all day and all the evening until just about the time of the fire. He had been afraid of the boy for some time.

"Did you see the boy that day after you flogged him?"

"No, sir. He ran away."

"Do you know where he went to?"

"He went up town some where."

"Where?"

"Went, I believe, a-fishing."

"And was gone all day?"

"Yes."

"Then you didn't see him that day at all?"

"Not till the fire, of course."

"Of course -- of course! You didn't see him go to the barn or come from it that day or evening, till the alarm of fire?"

"That's all, that's all; sit down. Captain, sit down; sit down, sir."

"Stop a moment, Captain," said Lawyer Tools. "How do you account for Jims' haying burned the barn?"

"Why, just out of spite. You see the boy often gets a flogging -- he's a hard boy to get along with any how -- and we flogged him that morning for stealing chickens."

"And he set the barn on fire from revenge?"

"Yes, sir; undoubtedly."

"Undoubtedly!" said Lawyer Tools.

"You say he did set the barn on fire?" said Lawyer Ketchum.

"Well -- er -- that is -- 'undoubtedly' he did -- yes, sir."

"With that qualification, Ketchum, that's all," said Tools. "Ain't you satisfied?"

"I am not exactly," replied the other.

"You say you didn't see the boy all day till the fire in the evening, yet swear that he undoubtedly burned the barn. Now what proof have you of this? It must be very strong, Captain Bunce."

Here Mr. Tools was highly incensed. He said it was a mere professional dodge and snare. It was going all round Robin Hood's barn to prove that Captain Bunce's barn wasn't burned by a boy that every body knew burned it; and burned it at no connivance of Captain Bunce, but purely and of his own instincts from a desire of revenge. Mr. Tools never saw a question so plain as this made so complete a fog of. For his part, he hoped that the investigation would be kept in due bounds of law and evidence. His time was too precious to throw away, and his ideas of professional practice too sensitive to relish fun and stratagem, where character and property were at stake, as in the instance before them.

The business of the "investigation" then again went on. Mr. Ketchum said he was a straightforward man, and only wanted to get at the truth.

"Proceed, gentlemen," said Justice Stout. "What proof have you, Captain Bunce, that the boy burned the barn, and that he alone burned it?"

"The marks in the snow, the fact of his returning at the time, his ill will towards me, and so forth."

"You saw those foot-prints yourself?"

"I did."

"You knew when he returned?"

"I saw him at the fire."

Captain Bunce was permitted to sit down.

Mr. Smith swore to his encounter with the boy in the morning. Dick Bunce and Elisha and Mrs. Bunce swore to his being flogged, and leaving in a pet. Dick was sure the boy burned the barn -- was ready to swear to it; none too good to do it, nor any thing else. Dick talked loud, and a great deal. He said the boy was gone all day and all the evening.

"Were you at home in the evening?" inquired Lawyer Ketchum.

"I -- yes -- no, I was not all the evening."

"How, then, do you know the boy was absent?"

"By what others tell me -- every body says so."

"Yes, but this is not your own knowledge. Did you return home that evening?"

"Yes, sir, I returned home, of course."

"Before the fire, or at the alarm of fire?"

"Oh, I don't just recollect now -- yes, after the fire."

"You did not return in season to go down to the barn to feed the stock, or any thing of that sort?"

"Oh, no, of course."

"Call in colored Bill," said Lawyer Ketchum.

"Bill, were any of the poor folks gone from home that day of the fire, except Jims?"

"Yes, Dan was gone, Mag was gone, John Tucker and Pol was gone."

"Did they come back that night?"

"Dan come back with Jims, and the rest come back some time, don't know when."

"Did you see Captain Bunce that evening, Bill?"

Mr. Tools objected.

Mr. Ketchum persisted.

Mr. Stout wasn't certain -- finally allowed.

""Wall, I saw him about eight o'clock, I guess."

"You must not guess here," said Mr. Tools.

"Wall, then, I know."

"How so?" inquired Ketchum.

"He come into the poor-house, and asked where all the folks was?"

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him Roxy was gone off with Dick. Ha! ha! ha!" The negro's laugh was communicated to others.

"Ha! ha -- "began the crowd.

"Order!" shouted the justice, "there must he order!"

"What did he say to that?"

"He said Dick was hazeing after that girl too much."

Justice Stout promptly put down all manifestations of excitement in the crowd, and Mr. Ketchum inquired if Captain Bunce appeared anxious to see Dick.

Lawyer Tools objected -- objection sustained.

"Well, Bill, can you tell me whether Dick came home that evening?"

"He did, sir, he came home before the fire."

"You mean at the fire," quickly suggested Lawyer Tools.

"No, sir-ee, I mean half an hour before the fire," said the negro stoutly.

"Why, there must be some error here," said Tools.

"Keep quiet, Mr. Tools," said Ketchum, "we shall get at the thing by degrees: don't fly into a heat now, don't."

Mr. Tools looked flushed, but sat down.

"He came home half an hour before the fire. How do you know?"

"Because he said it was half-past eight, and Jims and Dan and Mag and Pol and Tucker were out, when they'd ought to be home, bed, and sleep -- wondered if any of 'em had gone down to the barn to sleep."

Mr. Tools, with some excitement, requested the justice to observe that this testimony was flatly in contradiction with that of Mr. Richard Bunce, who testified that he did not return till after the fire, etc., etc.

Justice Stout took a note of it.

Mr. Ketchum said it was his liberty to show, by a disinterested witness, wherein the witnesses on the part of Captain Bunce had testified erroneously. Mr. Tools shook his head, Mr. Stout considered the matter by looking first at one party and then at the other over his spectacles.

"Go on, Bill," said Justice Stout.

"Haven't anything more to say, sir -- except this, Dick told me he believed Jims or some of them would get into State's prison yet. What for? I said. For burning barns or something else."

"A c----d lie!" roared a voice from the crowd. It was Richard Bunce.

"Undoubtedly!" said lawyer Tools.

"What is the point, gentlemen?" inquired the justice.

"It is this, may it please the Court," said Mr. Ketchum, "that this witness swears to a conversation with Richard about the 'burning of barns,' evidently thinking of his father's barns, half an hour before the event, or before any body else had apparently thought of such an event 1"

"The witness ought not to be interrupted," said the justice, "though he should remember to speak only the truth and what he knows."

Bill said he didn't pretend to know anything. He only said just what he saw "with his natural eyes and heard with his natural ears." So he was dismissed.

Now it came for Jims to be examined. The boy looked very much abashed and shy when brought forward -- you would say at once guilty -- and how could he be otherwise than guilty? Did not all the evidence lean against him? Was he not friendless too, and suspected of every crime committed in the neighborhood?

But Jims' appearance was rather the natural awkwardness of one brought up in an inferior condition, who had all his life been abused and kept in the dust; it was more this than the effect of guilt. He was oppressed by the scrowling look of the people, and by the consciousness of their verdict already made up against him, as well as by the circumstances all harmonizing to convict him, but not by any sense of his criminality in the case -- so he showed as good a face as he, poor boy, felt able to, and several times made such replies to the lawyer's interrogatories as to rather interest the spectators in his favor.

He admitted the flogging and the cause of it. His evil temper; his brush with Mr. Shire, but told them Mr. Shire inflamed him by calling Mr. Boyce names, and then by shaking him and threatening to flog him again. The people all looked at Shire rather searchingly and inquiringly.

"Well, it was something so, by thunder, boy," said Shire, in the crowd.

"It was, eh?" said Lawyer Tools, jocosely.

Jims told his story till he got to the corner of the barnyard wall. Here the lawyers and the justice, and all the people were very intent to get hold of every word he spoke, and of every idea and shade of thought the poor boy had.

"You say," said Tools, "you went acrost the lot in the snow because it was nearer?"

"Yes, sir."

"How much nearer was it?"

"I don't know, some considerable."

"You went to the corner of the wall?"'

"Yes, I went there."

"Did you go round the corner into the path?"

"No, I didn't."

"Did you get over the wall, my boy; you needn't be afraid to say so if you did. Did you get over the wall into the yard?" blandly inquired Tools.

"No, I didn't."

"You didn't even climb the wall to see the cattle?"

"No, not a bit.'

"Well, my boy, you say you stopped at the corner of the wall a little time -- say how long."

"A minute."

"Was it not fifteen minutes?"

"'Fifteen minutes!' Oh, dear, no! I was home talking with old Dan in less than that."

"Perhaps you went acrost the fields to meet Dan?"

"No, I didn't; met him by accident. It was dark."