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About The Conyers weekly. (Conyers, Ga.) 18??-1888 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 29, 1884)
“A PSALM OF LIFEP Tell me not in mournful numbers, “Life is but an empty dream!” .For the soul is dead that glum berg, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; “Dust thou art. to dust retumest,” Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way. But to act that each to-morrow Finds us further than to-day. Art is long, and time is fleeting. And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like rr.uffkd drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife. Trust no fortune, howe’er pleasant; Let the dead past bury its dead; Act—act in the living present— Heart within and God o’erhead ! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime; And. departing, leave behind us Footprints on the'sands of time— Footprints that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life's solemn main, A forelorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let ns, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate, Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. Henry W. Longfellow. P’oox* Jack. “Life is worth nothing to me if I can¬ not dress well!” She said it, and she meant it, from her heart. And she looked down scorn¬ fully and angrily upon her coarse dress and common shoes. Many and many a time the thought had been in her mind; and now it formed itself in words which she uttered aloud; and, as they fell upon the evening air, a hand came down upon her shoulder, and, turning, she saw her husband. “Is it really so, Bell?” he asked, and drew her to him. A baby thing, though she had a woman s years and stature—a beautiful creature, with a creamy s kin and eyes blue as sapphires are. Not a common woman ; one in whose veins blue blood ran. You could see that at a glance, though the man whose wife she was was a common sailor. They told a romantic story about her in that sea-side palacq. How, on a ▼oyage across the ocean with her father, the sailor had won her heart How there were, afterward, secret meetings and troth-plightings; and how, in the end, the discovery of the love affair and her parent’s anger had only driven Bell Raymond to elope with her sailor lover, and marry him despite all opposition. She had been disowned and disin¬ herited ; and now, were they to meet in the street her own father would have passed her as he would a stranger; for, to his mind, she had disgraced herself and her family irretrievably. That Jack Marble was good and hand¬ some, and love-worthy, was no excuse for his daughter in Mr. Raymond’s eyes. He was a common sailor, that blotted out all merit at once and forever. Other people marvelled at Bell Ray mond’s choice, and blamed her too. But she was very happy. Her young hus band idolizedlier, and at the first money was plenty. Certain sums, which Jack’s hard-workingfather had scraped together for a rainy day, and so bequeathed to his son, were withdrawn from the bank in which they had been deposited; and Bell had a tasteful wardrobe, for this her father had sent her, with a cold message to the effect that her own personal prop erty was all she need ever expect at his hands. Then soon Jack hoped to be a mate; after that, a captain; some day, captain and owner—the grand climax of a sea faring man’s ambition. And to Bell, the fact that her husband was a sailor, threw a romance about him which a landsman could not have had. Their life passed on in a pleasant sort of waltz music, and neither dreamt of any change. Yet change came. Jack left his young wife for a voyage, understanding, as she could not, how the little hoard had me ted away, and would continue to melt like snow under a sunbeam, and the voyage was a disastrous one, ending in shipwreck. Many were lost, and Jack was only rescued at death’s door with a broken limb, and a miserable experience of starvation and consequent cannibal¬ ism. Indeed, Jack himself came near making a meal for two maddened mess¬ mates, who afterward wept like babies at the remembrance of their horrible thought*. Jack had a good constitution, and re¬ covered. His roses came back, aud his hair, long ami lank, when they took him from the floating raft, curled close to his handsome head again. But he came back to Bell with a wooden leg and a knowledge that his sailor life was over, and that he should never now aspire to the title of mate, amd master, and owner. Bell loved him all the more, and pitied him, and cherished him; and, had they been rich, their life might have glided on to the old waltz music—a lit¬ tle sadder, but no less sweet. But, alas! they were not rich, but growing very poor. So, as the money grew less, the com¬ forts grew less. They left the pretty rooms to which he had taken her for a very humble place; and poor Jack, salt to the very soul and unfit for any lands¬ man’s work as a fish for a parlor-cage, humbled himself and said nothing of that aching place where his dreams of sea and of advancement lay covered up, and sunk into the vacant place left by an old boatman who had plied his trade at the wharf and along the shore of the town where Jack had been born and had lived all his life. He had strong arms yet, and was a wonderful oarsman, and they did not starve. But their life was the pinching life of the poor, and it came soon to the coarsest fare and the coarsest dress; and Bell, who had been used to dainty food and elegant attire, suffered more than the sailor who knew what hard-tack was and was used to roughing it He never knew how bitteriy she re¬ pined until coming upon her in a day¬ dream he heard those words : “Life is worth nothing tome if I must go shabby.” She wept on his shoulder, as he held her to him and sobbed out at heart. “It was more than she could bear. It was terrible. Their housemaid at home had better clothes. It was horrible to look out of the window and hear the sailors’ wives quarreling with their hus¬ bands, or scolding their children, or beating down the fish-mongers, the blast from whose tin horns filled the street from dawn until sunset. Was such a life worth anything ? and she could not rid herself of it for an hour, for her clothes were not fit to wear where people were well dressed; and she would not be seen by her old friends now.” So she sobbed. And Jack’s hand smoothed her fair hair, and his lips touched her cheek, and by-and-bye he whispered: •*I wish I had never met you, lass; or I wish I’d drifted by without a signal; for, d’ye see this is all my fault; and you’d be safe in harbor now if you hadn't sailed out of it with me. Only I couldn’t foresee the future, lass; and I thought to make you a captain’s wife; by-and-bye an owner’s lady. It would have been better for you if Jem and Bill had made a meal of me, I’ve come to think, Rid of me, your father would take you home; well—it may happen yet.” And then Bell put her arms about his neck and whispered that she did not re¬ gret her love for him. But struggle as she might with it, the words that had been said of her folly would recur to her mind, and she knew that she did regret something. It was hard to help it. Jack knew it also. He ate his humble supper sadly, and went out again. His day’s work was over, but he wanted to be alone. He limped down to the shore where it was lonely, and washed the highest by the sobbing waves, and stood looking out. “I meant , to , make , her , captains . . , a be muttered. “ X meant to show the old hunks ashore that sbe shou,d have he ,^ ld have given her. Tber ® 8 a h ° us f wlth a f e ™ w ’ and a , lookout top, that I T meant to buy; and f ° r ” ggu ^ " hy no lfldy m J he land <*ould have been sprucer No wonde sbe f > «**“* *»' whlte “ " lth J?* What t nght T°*' had and 1 totura g ° mg pirate shabby i and ' tow °°' ’ ber awa y from her moorings, and then make shipwreck of her ? Yes, it would be better to be down below, among the wrecks—a great deal better. She must think me an enemy; I’ve only done her harm; I who love her better than my life.” Then he looked seaward again moodily, A terrible storm was coming; his sailor eye saw that without a doubt. He felt it in the air; heard it in all sounds; and the leaden foaming of the distant waves, j tbe black mee ting of the sea and sky, ma de it manifest to anvone. ‘ ; A ship bad been wr ecked tlie day or6) aud ber wreck was lying beyond he harbor bar. Jack fell to thinking of ber “She’ll go to pieces to-night,” he said. “The storm will make an end of her,” and he thought of the ship as of a sensate human being whose troubles were nearly ended, with a kind of envy, too. If he should live until Bell hated him how could he bear it ? His earthly hopes had gone. The ideal ship to be named the Bell Marble would never be his, and he must limp painfully through the world to his life’s end now. But he could bear that if he could only keep Bell’s heart. Could he without money ? He put his curly head down on his bronzed hands, and prayed a strange, innocent, simple prayer: “Please to give me money enough to keep my wife’s love, and forgive me if I am wrong, for I’m only a poor sailor adrift without a compass, and not a haplain, and don’t know. ” Perhaps his theology was at fault; but he had heard that he must pray for what he needed, and he tried the advice practically. and looking After that he stood up, along the beach saw further on an ex¬ cited group, and went to join them. Sailors, boatmen, a spruce captain in his ashore clothes, an idle woman or two, some children, and a gentleman who had nothing seafaring in his appear¬ ance, and wore his arm in a sling. This gentleman was talking. “A thousand dollars for the man who brings them. Is no man anxious to make money so easily ? Two hours’ work. I’d do it myself if I had not sprained my arm. I saw the wreck from the light-house. There will be no difficulty, and she will go to pieces be¬ fore morning. A thousand dollars! There’s an offer for these men, Captain Taylor.” “Only men are fond of their lives,” said the captain. “Look at the sea and the sky. I should like to help you to your casket, but I can’t advise these men to go. It would be murder. ” “Pshaw ! The fellows at our college would have done it for fun.” “A sailor would not,” said the captain. “If the ship lives through the night, there’s a chance.” “But can she?” asked the stranger. “I think not,” said the captain. “Good heavens! think of it!” cried the man. “The fruits of five years’ labor in Europe are in that casket. I’ve toiled with brain and body. I’m ruined if it is lost. There are men who would do it for a trifle. You hear my offer, all of you. Bring that casket before sun¬ set, and I’ll give you more.” Then a brown hand touched his arm, and a voice husky with emotion said: “I’m your man, on one condition.” The gentleman turned. “One who is not a coward,” he said. “There ain’t a coward here,” said Jack. “I know the danger as well as they, but promise me one, thing. Promise me before these people, so that you must hold to it. The money you will give me if I get ashore again?” “The money I have promised will be paid at once,” said the gentleman. “Hear me out, please,” said Jack. “That money, if I die out there, you’ll pay to my wife. Swear that, and I’m ready.” “Jack,” cried the captain, “it is sheer madness. ” Jack smiled; a strange, heart-broken smile enough. “I’ll try it,” he said, “on that condi¬ tion. ” The gentleman had torn a leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote upon it hastily. “This secures a thousand dollars to your wife,” he said. “Your name ?” “Jack Marble,” said the sailor. “To Jack Marble’s wife,’’said the man. “No danger, though ; as I said before, our college boys would have made sport of it. Hurry, my man ; hurry.” Jack glanced over the papers. “Keep it for me, Captain Taylor,” he said. “I’m readv now. sir.” Then he went to unmoor his boat and make her ready. Afterward, as he dropped the oars in the water, and pulled from shore, he looked back and said in a whisper, blown from his lips as it passed them by the furious gale: “Good-by, Bell. Good-by, darling. Good-by.” They watched him out of sight. The little bark was a mere eggshell for the storm .to play with one such a night. “He’ll never come back no more, master,” said a woman who stood near the gentleman, and the faces of all about them said the same. An hour thence the tempest had burst over them, such as only one old woman in all that sea-side place could remem¬ ber having known before. And then (it was fifty years or more since the day) twenty dead bodies had been cast upon the beach in the morning; bodies of fishermen caught outside the harbor bar by the storm. There were sad hearts in the town—a town filled with sea-going folk, nearly every household of which had some dear one afloat on the ocean. But every woman there had a thought to spare from her own sorrows for poor Jack Marble and the young wife who wept for him. She had been proud and held herself above them; but they forgot that when they saw her cast down upon the sand in the gray dawn, all her golden hair about her face. She had heard the story of her husband’s compact with the stran¬ ger, and knew why he had been so ready to barter his life for gold. Knew as none there knew that he had no hope of ever coming back. Touch that money—not she—never, though she starved. Nor would she go back to her luxurious home, where, doubtless, now she would be welcomed. There she would die, and they should bury her in the sea, to float away and find Jack. All the world was nothing without him; nothing, she knew that. Life was worthless without Jack. And no one gave her any hope. No one dared. The wreck had vanished. Bits of her came in with the tide. Soon it might bring that which had been Jack to her feet. All day she watched for it with maddening eyes, with a horrible soul rending hope and fear mingling in her soul. But the sea brought only in the dusk a little boat. One old man in red flannel, with a tarpaulin upon his head, at the oars. A stranger who came up to the men on the beach, and said some¬ thing to them—something that set them all a shouting, screaming, cheering, ut¬ tering Jack Marble’s name with odd gasps and sobs; and before they told her Bell knew that her husband had been saved. He lay in the fisherman’s hut, buffeted by wave and wind to an infant’s weak¬ ness, and she bent over him, her lips to his, and words were spoken then that bound their hearts more firmly than they ever had been bound before. Jack had not brought the casket, and would receive nothing from the' man who had sent him forth. Bell urged him with tears in her eyes to this. “I would not have it, Jack,” she said. “It is as though I could have taken money for your life. ” So with Jack’s health the two re¬ turned to their old humble life. They were .never happier, Jack often said, than in these days, though afterward wealth came to them; for Bell's father re¬ lented at death, and made her his heiress. And Jack’s great hope of being owner of a splendid steamer came to pass, al¬ though he made but one or two voyages in her, after all, and those with Bell. And people who knew how rich they were wondered sometimes that Captain Marble’s wife would not be finer. Al¬ ways neat, she never decked herself as many women did. She knew why, and so did Jack, who tried to move her often, but no one else, unless my reader guesses how those words which she had spoken had haunted her on the night through which she wept for Jack as one dead. A Butter Idyl. “Talk about creamery butter,” said the grocer, “give me the old-fashioned sweet-cream-home-made-churned butter of the country, like this,” and he laid a roll on the counter and proceeded to butter some crackers. “Eh? what’s that?” inquired a cus¬ tomer. “Country butter? Let me taste it.” So more crackers were buttered, which he ate greedily. “How much of that butter have you got?” he asked, wiping his chops with a smack of satisfaction. “Took the most of it home to my own family, Colonel M--bought some and will be in after the rest. You see, it isn’t easy to get June, clover-fed, cream butter at this time of year. You could not find a pound in any other store in town,” said the grocer, proudly. “Send me up the lot,” said the cus¬ tomer; “I don’t want any creamery butterine after eating that. You can’t fool me on genuine butter. I was brought up on a farm, I was, and know good butter when I see it. ” And he paid for his goods and went out. “Where did you strike that butter?’ asked a man who was eating prunes and pickles near the stove. “Down at the factory where they make it,” replied the grocer, calmly. And the beating of their own hearts was all the sound they heard. Chopping Wood.—You must know something of your business, even if it is wood chopping. An old Ean Claire logger says that if you are cutting small lumber, which may be severed at from one to a half doxen blows, an ax with a long, thin blade, and as little bevel as is compatible with strength, js chosen, and at every stroke the blade is buried to the helve. If the purpose is to fell large trees or cut heavy timber, and this same ax is used, it bites deep in its strokes, but the chip remains in the limber after the incisions, and many more blows are required to dislodge it than were necessary to its formation; therefore, for this purpose, an ax having a thick, heavy bevel, and cutting not so deep, is selected. The bevel, now act¬ ing as a wedge, forces out the chip at the same stroke by which the in¬ cision is made. Slavery. —Chinese slavery in Ameri¬ can cities is not, the San Francisco Chronicle says, a new discovery made by the lady who recently addressed the Eastern press. It exists in that city in an exaggerated form, and even the courts are powerless in their efforts to draw out the truth. The slaves dare not tell it. MARRYING FOR THB E IIad IF e Sggju, wife 8 1 n A Sad Incident of her European tue*" Some years ago a young . knew very well as the reigning p ° tt one ried of a our Hungarian smaller American^ ' officer in the gentleman who an Austrian service " respectable rank. He a ® able, was kind and there was no question Ju social much standing, and as the girl J* * very in love with him k e reluctantly r P gave their consent j went with her husband to his f home. She knew G a 110 eri nan fa spoke , English very well), and to knowledge of the world. Thin! her life must have been. * speak to nobody She for a while untiu mastered enough of the amusements he country to permitted get along. were!! Thlk her those she had been used to, and tip solute without social suspicion, freedom that to come and* ] is one‘of charms of American womanlife L gone. Two years ago I was hi J lot rison town of Austria, on the Danube, and there I met what had the sweetly pretty girl of ten years I such change, a? 5 never saw a the only American I have met that ever knew before in ten ye®, 11 4 said. “I am not unhappy, but I fa) if our girls at home could only knowos undesstand how different everytlm here is from what they have been to, they would never dream ol mama a man who was not an American, It? have to change everything when fa come abroad to live. I have S 1 M years and never heard my m 0 fa tongue. Leopold, ” her husband, "is j command here. But there are no for me to associate with. In the Al¬ tman service no man is permitted id J marry until he has a certain come. The young officers, the*!, cannot marry, for they are geml/l chel poor. Those who are rich gohto Guards regiments, which are atlml or other large cities. So we g/al worst and poorest educated in tkfe] I have not spoken to a lady it a months. You cannot imagine mz utterable loneliness.” As I badeiii good-bye she broke into a torrent 1 tears and said : “lamso lonely. Ial so lonely. Oh, that I could go homil Upom my return to America I saw kl mother, and told her that her daughtl was dying of homesickness, and that! she ever wished to see her alive fal must bring her home for a visit, Ttol did so, but the bad living and miasm had done its work only too well, aiidsM died within three weeks after she ago came under her father’s roof. If oil! girls could only know, or if they m only think, how much unhappiness tiaj would save themselves I The first thi| the foreigner thinks of in marrying if money, and not an American girl in on hundred is married for any other canuj than that she has or will have mm I The rule is absolute. For the sale her dollars the noble German, or not, bestows upon her his rafijBl he would never do if she werertroM Small wonder is it, then, thatomH taking Consul makes up such a state j ment as that quoted from, and tbit . result is invariably what he says it * shame and misery until death, t be that the lesson will be heeded, an it is, then Mr. Potter has done a« that entitles him to the thanks of eve American man or woman. Washing Herald. “The Air Pudding” He was mate of a vessel j by a Nantucket* skipper, had retummgj* got » a long cruise. They the “south shoal,” when the aft and reported that the P 1 ® t n entirely out. “It can >*! were “How can •** swered the skipper, fact.” “f be?” “I do’no, but it’s a casks?” 4 ’’ you examined all the 0> sir.” “Can’t the cook scrapes® out of the bread barge?” ( a m sailors’ hard bread is kept ^ scraped it all out long ^ j r grew clamorous, and the called them aft to take P° ^ him on the quarter d ek. "J they went .to see what w “Now, boys,” said the shipP to where Nantucket fresh breeze lay, h]o<->\ quarter a will treat y ^ “now, lads, I 1 delicious ! Open yom m0 ^ y r They did so. “Now, mouths and stomachs wj. & 0 iji* air pudding !” Toe scene ^ crous obtained that it kept succor their and spirit^ » ^ they port. carried them into A magazine writer asks, Indians ? Tb>® “ * we utilize the rW*1 cult question would to answer, be to F' ' *” a 11 J Vi best plan 1 - sell them for of cigar-store considers ^ “ - idea is worthy
