The boatman said he would not, and inquired what he meant by asking him such a question.
The governor replied, "Because some day that boy may become a governor, and you may want him to pardon you for a crime. One dark stormy night many years ago you stopped your boat on the Mississippi River to take on a load of wood. There was a boy on board working his way from New Orleans to St. Louis, but he was very sick of fever and was lying in a bunk. You had plenty of men to do the work but you went to that boy with a stick of wood in your hand and drove him with blows and curses out into the wretched night and kept him toiling like a slave until the load was completed. I was that boy. Here is your pardon. Never again be guilty of such brutality."
The man, cowering and hiding his face, went out without a word.
What a noble revenge that was, and what a lesson for a bully.—Success.
NO TELEPHONE IN HEAVEN.
"Now, I can wait on baby," the smiling merchant said, As he stooped and softly toyed with the golden, curly head. "I want oo to tall up mamma," came the answer full and free, "Wif yo' telephone an' ast her when she's tummin' back to me.
"Tell her I so lonesome 'at I don't know what to do, An' papa cries so much I dess he must be lonesome, too; Tell her to tum to baby, 'tause at night I dit so 'fraid, Wif nobody here to tiss me, when the light bedins to fade.
"All froo de day I wants her, for my dolly dot so tored Fum the awful punchin' Buddy gave it wif his little sword; An' ain't nobody to fix it, since mamma went away, An' poor 'ittle lonesome dolly's dittin' thinner ever' day."
"My child," the merchant murmured, as he stroked the anxious brow, "There's no telephone connection where your mother lives at now." "Ain't no telephone in Heaven?" and tears sprang to her eyes. "I fought dat God had every'fing wif Him up in de skies."
—Atlanta Constitution.