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to get a sweet morsel. Some beggars act
in a similar manner. They approach
Christian people with an air of piety as
strong as they deem necessary to reach
their purses; but, if they succeed in their
tricks, they throw off the mantle of reli
gion at the first rum hole they come to,
and enter to take a drink.
The dog lying down has not a very
friendly look, either—has he ? He does
not even go to the trouble of begging for
a morsel, as his “bigger brother” does,
but evidently depends upon him for a
“share of the profits;” and whilst the
beggar is pleading his case, this fellow
contents himself with gnawing a feather,
which has fallen from the parrot’s tail.
Such is low life, which we find not only
among the dog race, but in greater abun
dance than even high life, in the base
ments and cellars of our cities, in our
alms-houses and groggeries, in our gam
bling houses and prisons.
Shall we ask our readers what kind of
life they would choose? Ho ! We do not
desire that j’ou should live either a high
or low life, such as we have referred to.
We desire that you should choose a mid
dle road to travel on. Live lives of in
dustry and usefulness—lives of godliness
and true righteousness—depending, by
the blessing of Heaven, on yourselves for
as much of this world’s goods as may be
needed for your comfort and convenience,
and on God alone for grace to work out
your salvation.
A life of sin is a low life, whatever else
it may be called by giddy worldlings;
but walking in the footsteps of our Sa
viour will lead us to a higher life than
this earth can afford.
Header, you now see the way. May
you have grace to walk therein, and reach
that higher life.
+»♦
“ Don’t Care.”
Old Don’t Care is a murderer foul,
And a murderer foul is he,—
He beareth a halter in his hand,—
And hi3 staff is the gallows tree;
And slily he follows the victim on,
Through high degree and low,
And strangles him there, when least aware,
And strikes the fatal blow—
Hanging his victim high in the air,
A villain strong is Old Don’t Care 1
mind so bright but drink will
befool it; no fortune so ample but brandy
will beggar it. The happiest it will fill
with misery; the firmest health dissipa
tion will shatter. No business so thriving
that whisky cannot spoil.
Luck lies in bed, and wishes the
postman would bring him news of a lega
cy. Labor turns out early, and, with
busy pen or ringing hammer, lays the
foundation of a competence.
BURKE’B WEEKLY.
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
MAROONEE’S ISLAND ;
OR,
Dr. Gordon in Search of His Children.
BY REV. F. R. GOULDING,
Author of “ The Young Marooners .”
CHAPTER Nl. — Concluded.
HIS Doctor,” continued
Jones, “used to tell a
fann y stOl T hi ß once
/ ’lplL, having helped to eat a
J|& skunk.”
lUpi “ Let us hear it, by all means,”
MA said Dr. Gordon, to which Jones
'HI replied:
“As the story is not long and
may amuse you, I will tell it, on condi
tion that it does not interfere with the
story that it is about time for us to hear
from our friend Thompson,”—looking
with a sort of pleasurable malice at his
good-natured companion.
Thompson very politely admonished
him by word and look to attend to his
own business, and Jones began :
“ The old gentleman, of whom the story
is told, is known as Eaton, though he was
so famous throughout the neighborhood
for trying to enjoy every thing which
could be cooked and brought to table, that
the country people knew him better as
Dr. Eat all. Persons familiar with his
house say that frogs and snails were as
common on his table as broiled chickens
and oysters were on the tables of other
people, and that he said the sweetest
broil, next to squirrel, was the ham of a
nice fat rat, and that the best broth ever
brought to his table was made from the
white flesh of the rattlesnake. He is re
ported to have said, too, that he had tried
everything within his reach that any
body else had eaten, —lizzards, spiders,
wood-peckers, cranes, crows, —and found
many of them delightful, but that there
was one thing which he could never make
palatable, and only one—it was the buz
zard ; that he had tried it broiled, fried,
roasted, baked, stewed with onions and
without, but that it was always buzzard.*
“ People say that he was not.only fond
of eating new things, but of eating in
strange places and in strange ways, and
that this fondness for what was new com
pelled him one day to feed upon a skunk.
“It is said that there was an old Ca
tawba chief who once dined with him,
and who was mightily taken with the
grandness of the doctor’s dinner, particu
. *vn in i lar l tory I s currcnt,y reported of the celebrated
AehiHe Murat, ex-king of Naples, during his refugee life
in rionda. He is said to have declared that he had been
able to eat everything except the buzzard. “ I try him ”
said he, in h,s broken English ; “Itry himfry-I try him
broil I try him stew-but pah ! he huizard yet.”
larly with the number of courses of which
the dinner was composed, and who, with
true Indian pride, invited the doctor to
dine some day with himself. But for i
long time the invitation was all that the
doctor could obtain. At last, the day was
fixed and the doctor went over. The
house was small and crowded, so the doc
tor and the chief sat and talked together
under the shade of a tree until dinner
time. Then the chief invited him to a
log, where they both seated themselves
with a board between for a table, and on
which was a pile of something covered
with a deer-skin. This deer-skin was as
near like as the Indian could invent to
the dish covers of the doctor’s table.—
There stood by an Indian whom the chief
had engaged to act as waiter, and who
took off the deer-skin, showing a big pile
of roasted potatoes. Each took one of
these and began to eat, when the chief
waved his hand to the waiter, and in a
very grand way said :
“ ‘Set on !’
“ The waiter then w r ent to a hole in the
ground where the heated air kept rising,
took out something by means of a stick
run through it as a spit, and set it smo
king hot, stick and all, on the pile of po
tatoes. The chief drew his big hunting
knife, cut a nice brown piece, which he
put on the board before the doctor, and
urged him to eat it. After which, he cut
off a piece for himself, and giving his
hand a very stately wave to the Indian
in waiting, he said :
“ ‘Take off the skunk !’
“ This made the doctor open his eyes,
for he had eaten a part of his slice, found
that it tasted well, and Avas wondering
whether it was a young raccoon, or some
other long-tailed game. This was the
chief’s first course at dinner. They sat
and talked awhile, enjoying their potato
and barbacue, when the chief gave anoth
er grand wrnve of his hand to the waiter,
and said :
“ ‘Set on the skunk !’
“ This was the second course, which
lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour, after
which the chief waved his hand again to
the waiter, saying—
“ ‘Take off the skunk !’
“ This was done as many times as the
plates at the doctor’s table had been
changed at the time the Indian dined
there. So, the chief had as many courses
at his dinner as he had counted at the
other’s, but as the doctor said : ‘lt was
skunk every time I ”
“Avery nice and believable story,
said Thompson, in a serio-comic tone, as
soon as Jones had concluded; “For, al
though I do not know much of the North