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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, NOVEMBER 1, 1882,
“ The world, dear child, !■ aa we take It, and
Life, be giire, U what we make It."
Written specially for the Southern World.
MAItY’M DULL.
Mary bad a lovely doll—
Ita teeth were white oa mow—
And every time ibe let It fau
lt cried aloud, '-Oho!"
Mary W doll had tiny feet,
And ten exquisite toes,
And every time It tried to walk,
It fell and hurt Its nose.
Mary told her doll one day.
That she must go to school,
And sternly bade her on the way,
When there, to heed each rule.
Bo Mary proudly took her sent,
Beside her dolly there,
And when the boys and girls did meet,
It made them laugh and stare.
And so the teacher took the doll,
Without a single word.
And crammed It roughly In hla desk
TUI every class was heard.
And then he kindly gave It back,
To hush poor Mary's tears-
Bbe stuffed It 'neath her woollen sack
And silenced all lu fears.
—Athalia Jaiob.
“BOY WASTED.”
People laughed when they saw the sign
again. It seemed to be always in Mr. Peters'
window. For a day or two, sometimes for
only an hour or two, it would be missing,
and passers-by would wonder whether Mr.
Peters had at last found a boy to suit him;
but sooner or later, it was sure to appear
again.
“ What sort of a boy does he want, any
way ? ” one and another would ask, and then
they would say to each other, that they sup
posed he was looking for a perfect boy, and
in their opinion, he would look a good while
before he found one. Not that there were
not plenty of boys—as many as a dozen used
sometimes to appear in the courscof a morn
ing, trying for the situation. Mr. Peters
was said to be rich and queer, und for one or
both of these reasons, boys were very unx-
ious to try to suit him. " All he wants is a
fellow to run of errands; it must be easy
work and sure pay. ” This was the way they
talked to each other. But Mr. Peters wanted
more than a boy to run of errands. John
Simmons found that out, and this was the
way he did it. He had been engaged that
very morning, and had been kept busy' all
the forenoon, at pleasant-enough work, and
although he was a luzy fellow, he rather en
joyed the place.
It wus towards the middle of the afternoon
that he was sent up to the attic, a dark,
dingy place, inhabited by mice and cob
webs.
“ You will And a long deep box there, ’’
said Mr. Peters, “ that I want to have put in
order. It stands right in the middle of the
room, you can't miss it. ”
John looked doleful. “ A long deep box,
I should think it was I ” he told himself, as
the attic door closed after him, “ It would
weigh most a ton, I guess; and what is there
in it? Nothing in the world but old nuils,
and screws, and pieces of iron, and broken
keys and things; rubbish, the whole of it!
Nothing worth touching, and it is as dark as
a pocket up here, and cold, besides, how the
wind blows in through those knot-holes!
There’s a mouse! If there isanything that I
hale, it's mice ! I’ll tell you what it is, if
old Peters thinks I’m going to stay up here
and tumble over his rusty nails, he’s much
mistaken. I wasn’t hired for that kind of
work. ”
Whereupon John bounced down the attic
stairs, three at a time, and was found loung
ing in the show window, half an hour after
wards, when Mr. Peters appeared.
" Have you put that box in order already ? ”
was the gentleman's question.
“I didn't And anything to put in order!
there was nothing in it but nails and things. ’’
“ Exactly ; it was the ‘nails and things’
that I wanted put in order; did you do it? ”
"No. sir, it was dark up there, and cold;
and I didn’t see anything worth doing; be
sides, I thought I was hired to run of er
rands. ’’
“Oh," said Mr. Peters, "I thought you
were hired to do as you were told. ” But he
smiled pleasantly enough, and at once gave
John an errand to do down town, and the
boy went off chuckling, declaring to himself
that ho knew how to manage the old fellow;
all it needed was a little standing up for your
rights.
Precisely at six o'clock John was called
and paid the sum promised him for a day’s
work, and then, to his dismay, he was told
that his services wonld not be needed any
more. He asked no questions; Indeed he
had time for none, as Mr. Peters immediate
ly closed the door.
The next morning the old sign " Boy
Wanted ’’ appeared in its usual place.
Before noon it was taken down, and Char
lie Jones was the fortunate boy. Errands,
plenty of them; he was kept busy until
within an hour of closing. Then, behold he
was Bent to the attic to put the long box in
order. He was not afraid of a mouse, nor of
the cold, but he grumbled much over that
box; nothing in it worth his attention.
However, he tumbled over the things, growl
ing all the time, picked out a few straight
nails, a key or two, and Anally appeared
down-stairs with this message: “ Here’s all
there is worth keeping in that old box; the
rest of the nails are rusty, and the hooks are
bent, or something. ’’
“ Very well, ’’ said Mr. Peters, and sent
him to the post-office. What do you think ?
by the close of the next day, Charlie had been
paid and discharged, and the old sign hung
in the window.
" I’ve no kind of a notion why I was dig.
charged, ” grumbled Charlie to his mother;
“ lie said he had no fault to And, only he saw
that I wouldn’t suit. Ii’s my opinion he
doesn’t want a boy at all, and takes that way
to cheat. Mean old fellow! ’’
It was Crawford Mills who was hired next.
He knew neither of the other boys, and so
did his errands in blissful ignorance of the
" large box," until the second morning of
his stay, when in a leisure hour he was sent
to put it in order. The morning passed,
dinner time came, and still Crawford had
not appeared from the attic. At lost Mr.
Peters called him, “ Got through ? ’’
“ No, sir, there is ever So much more to
do. ’’
“ All right; it iff dinner time now; you
may go back to it after dinner. ’’ After din
ner buck he went; all the short afternoon he
was not heard from, but just as Mr. Peterg
was deciding to call him again, he appeared.
*• I've done my best, sir," he said, "and
down at the very bottom of the box I found
this. ” " This ” was a Ave dollar gold-piece.
" That’s a queer place for gold, ’’ said Mr.
Peters. "It’sgood you found it; well, sir,
I suppose you will be on hand to-morrow
morning? " This he suid as he wus putting
the gold piece in his pocket-book. After
Crawford had said good-night and gone, Mr.
Peters took the lantern and went slowly up
the attic stairs. There was the long deep
box in which the rubbish of twenty Ave
years had gathered. Crawford had evident
ly been to the bottom of it; he had Atted in
pieces of shingle to make compartments,
and in these different rooms he had placed
the articles, with bits of shingle laid on top
and labeled thus ; “ Good screws, ’’ " Pret
ty good nails’ ’’ “ Picture nails, ” “ Small
keys, somewhat bent," “ Picture hooks, ’’
"Pieces of iron whose use I don't know,’>
So on through the long box. In perfect order
it was at last, and very little that could
really be called useful, was to be found with,
in it. But Mr. Peters os he bent over and
read the labels, laughed gleefully and mur
mured to the mice: “ If we are not both mis
taken, I have found a boy, and he has found
a fortune. ’’
Sure enough; the sign disappeared from
the window and was soon no more. Craw
ford became the well-known errand boy of
the Arm of Peters & Co. He bad a little
room neatly Atted up, next to the attic,
where he spent his evenings, and at the foot
of the bed hunga motto which Mr. Peters
gave him. "It tells your fortune for you,
don't forget it, ” he said when he handed it
to Crawford; and the boy laughed and read
it curiously: "lie that is faithful in that
which is least, is faithful also in much. ”
“ I’ll try to be, sir, ” he said ; and he never
once thought of the long box over which he
had been faithful.
All this happened years ago. Crawford
Mills is errand boy no more, but the Arm is
Peters, Mills, <fc Co. A young man and a
rich man. "He found liis fortune in a
long box of rubbish, ” Mr. Peters said once,
laughing. "Never was a Ave dollar gold
piece so successful in business os that one of
his has been ; it is good be found it. ” Then
after a moment of silence he said gravely:
“ No, he didn’t; he found it in his mother’s
Bible. 1 He that is faithful in that which is
least, is faithful also in much. ’ It is true ;
Mills the boy was faithful, and Mills the man
we trust.—Selected.
THE ACADIAN LOGGED.
“Here, Henri, you will take care of the
children and not let them fall in the water,"
Madame Louis Baptiste said to her son, an
intelligent-looking boy about twelve years
old. "Your father and I can not get back
before night, lor we have got to see to the
ruft in 'Bayou noir’ that this wind doesn’t
scatter it. A bard day's work; and you must
help us by taking care of the little ones,"
and Madame Baptiste hurried off to rejoin
her husband, who was waiting at the door
for her in his skiff.
Madame Baptiste I call the plain-faced
sturdy, little woman, and she was known by
that name far and near. Two years before
that, an agent was seeking amongst the log
gers for a certain Monsieur Desmarais, who
had inherited two or three hundred dollars
by the death of a distant relative in New Or
leans.
"Desmarais?” said the loggers; “there is
no such man here. It is a mistake."
“Desmarais?” said Madame Baptiste,
whose house was the last he visited; "why,
my friend, I was born here, I married here,
and I never heard the name before in my
life."
“Very strange!” grumbled the agent to the
gentleman whoffiad directed him to the Aca
dian loggers; "why on earth did you send
me on such a wild goose chase? The name
of Desmarais it utterly unknown among
those people.”
The gentleman Arst stared at the speaker
and then burst into a hearty At of laughter
“I beg your pardon," he said at last, "i
forgot to tell you to ask for Louis Baptiste.
He is the heir, though I doubt if the fellow
ever knew that he had another name. He
was probably christened by the name he
bears; certainly married under it. Go back
and look him up.”
He did so, and had an interview with Mon
sieur Louis Baptiste. Afteracourseof ques
tions the latter rubbed his hair up, scratched
his head, and with a visible effort of mem
ory, recalled that he had heard his father say
they had another name, but he thought two
were enough for any man to carry. Yes, he
knew M. Jean Pontages, of New Orleans, was
a "petitcousin” (little cousin). He received
the legacy, and as the Acadians did not be
lieve in banks and knew nothing of proffta-
ble investments, he turned it into specie,
tied it up in a strong yarn stocking and bid
it at the bottom of the big family cbest as a
fund for a rainy day. He never slackened
bis laborious life for this snug little nest-egg.
The children gathered at the window of
the cabin to see their parents off.
“ Take care of the wuter, Henri, ’’ the
mother called out, as she kissed her hand to
them. "Don’t let Claude and Margot lean
out too far."
Come with me to this strange section of
the Attakapas country, and you will under
stand Madame Baptiste’s warning about
water. Amidst a perfect net-work of lakes
and bayous these loggers have made their
home. Regularly every spring these low,
swampy lands are inundated, and for months
they live literally in the water. But here
they stay, rearing families as well as the mis
erable, unhealthy, miasma-poisoned air will
lot them. They are gaunt, and yellow as or
anges from chills and fevers, but a cheerful,
honest, hospitable race. They have no books,
no schools, and are as ignorant as any human
beings of this nineteenth century can be;
but if they have none of the advantages of a
higher civilization, neither have they its
vices.
The most curious thing about them is their
houses. They build their one-story log cab
ins on rafts, and as the water rises, the rafts
Aoat on the surface, and as these rafts are
securely fastened by chains to a tree, or
strong stakes driven deep in the ground,
there is no danger of their drifting aDy dis
tance. They build quite near each other,
and the houses bob about socially together.
The men make log rafts and Aoat them into
the Atchafalaya in high water; the women
spin and weave, and often help their hus
bands with their logs.
This spring of 1882, the water was unusu
ally high. The Mississippi was breaking
through its levees in various places. The
Atchafalaya Lake und river were over their
banks. The loggers’ huts were tossing about
rather wildly, and from Paul Baptiste’s
cabin (the nearest to a large lake), there was
nothing to be seen but a vast expanse of an
gry water.
It was a wild, gusty, March day, and the
cabin straiued and creaked under the gusts
of wind, but the children were accustomed
to feel their house bobbing about, and didn’t
iniud it in the least.
They had no books and pictures and play
things like the children in the great world
of which they knew nothing. But Henri
was rigging for Claude a little boat, which
he had curved out himself, and they were
very merry Routing it in tlieir mother’s big
wush-tub, and pretending that the wind out
side wus capsizing it. But the little ones
began to weury of the boat, and Margot, who
hud forgotten to cry when her mother went
away, awakened to her duties, and sobbed
and snivelled, until Henri and Claude be
came distracted. Suddenly Henri’s eyes fell
on a pile of seed-cotton iu the corner, and be
drew Margot to it.
"Come," he cried, gaily, “let us pick the
seeds from the cotton, so that when mamma
comes home she will And a famous pile
ready for her spinning-wheel. She is going
to weave Margot a beautiful blue dress from
it.”
These Acadian folk had no machinery for
ginning their cotton; yet laboriously
cleansed by the hand, spun and woven in
the most primitive -munuer, Attakapas cbt-
tonade, for texture and fast colors, brings
the highest market price. The pile of cotton
soon diminished under the busy hands of
the children, for with the blue dress in per
spective little eight-year-old Murgot would
have worked her small Augers to the bone.
Twilight was creeping on, and the storm be
came more furious.
" Tell us the story of the white mouse,
Henri,” said Claude, “and then we can
work famously.”
" No, no," Margot cried. " I know it
every word by heart. O Henri, «ing us the
song of 'Jolie Crnur.’ ’’
“But that makes me cry," Claude per
sisted.
“ I want to cry, me."
" Well, you needn’t," he grumbled; good
ness kuows you do enough of that. Besides,
who ever heard of a mamma driving her
little girl out among the wolves? It’s non
sense, and I don't want nonsense."
“If it’s nonsense, 1 want it,” the obstinate
little child cried. "Our mamma wouldn’t
do it, but others would, and 1 like to think
how good she is, and how wicked Jolie
Cojut’s mamma was, Besides, the wind
THE FANTA1L PIGEON—THE BOYS’ PET.