The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 / A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers

VOLUME XXI.—No. 3. BOSTON: JOHN L. SHOREY, No. 36 BROMFIELD STREET, 1877.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by JOHN L. SHOREY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. FRANKLIN PRESS: RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 117 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON.


OOK at the picture, and see if you can tell what has roused all those children up so early in the morning. There is Mary in her stocking-feet. There is Ann in her night-dress. There is Tom, bare armed and bare legged.
Why have they all left their beds, and run into the play-room in such haste? And why is little Ned, the baby, sitting up in the bed, as though he wanted to come too?
It is plain enough that the children use that room for a play-room; for you can see playthings on the mantle-piece. But why are they all flocking about the fireplace? And why is mamma coming upstairs with a dust-brush in her hand? And why is that cloth hung over the fireplace? And whose are those bare feet peeping from under it?
Oh! perhaps you will say, it is Santa Claus; and the children are trying to catch him. Oh, no! Santa Claus never allows himself to be caught in that way. You never see even his feet. He never leaves his shoes on the floor, nor dirty old brushes, nor shovels. It is not Santa Claus—it is only a chimney-sweeper.
But what is a chimney-sweeper? I think I hear you ask. Well, we do not have such chimney-sweepers now-a-days, at least not in this part of the world. But ask your grandfathers and grandmothers to tell you about the chimney-sweepers that were to be seen in Boston forty or fifty years ago, and I warrant that many of them will remember just such a scene as you see in the picture.
In those days, before hard coal fires had come in use, chimney-sweepers were often employed. They were small boys, working under the orders of a master in the business, who was very often a hard master. Generally they were negroes; but, whether so or not, they soon became so black with soot, that you could not tell them from negroes.