Poor, miserable little Cash! you have my everlasting sympathy! I should go shopping twenty times, where I now go once, didn’t it harrow up my feelings, to see you driven on so, like a locomotive! “Here’s hoping” you may soon be made sensible of more than one meaning to word CHANGE!
ONLY A CHILD.
“Who is to be buried here?” said I to the sexton. “Only a child, ma’am.”
Only a child! Oh! had you ever been a mother—had you nightly pillowed that little golden head—had you slept the sweeter for that little velvet hand upon your breast—had you waited for the first intelligent glance from those blue eyes—had you watched its cradle slumbers, tracing the features of him who stole your girlish heart away—had you wept a widow’s tears over its unconscious head—had your desolate, timid heart gained courage from that little piping voice, to wrestle with the jostling crowd for daily bread—had its loving smiles and prattling words been sweet recompense for such sad exposure—had the lonely future been brightened by the hope of that young arm to lean upon, that bright eye for your guiding star—had you never framed a plan, or known a hope or fear, of which that child was not a part; if there was naught else on earth left for you to love—if disease came, and its eye grew dim; and food, and rest, and sleep were forgotten in your anxious fears—if you paced the floor, hour by hour, with that fragile burden, when your very touch seemed to give comfort and healing to that little quivering frame—had the star of hope set at last—had you hung over its dying pillow, when the strong breast you should have wept on was in the grave, where your child was hastening—had you caught alone its last faint cry for the “help” you could not give—had its last fluttering sigh been breathed out on your breast—Oh! could you have said—“’Tis only a child?”
MR. PIPKIN’S IDEAS OF FAMILY RETRENCHMENT.
Mrs. Pipkin, I am under the disagreeable necessity of informing you, that our family expenses are getting to be enormous. I see that carpet woman charged you a dollar for one day’s work. Why, that is positively a man’s wages;—such presumption is intolerable. Pity you did not make it yourself, Mrs. Pipkin; wives ought to lift their end of the yoke; that’s my creed.
Little Tom Pipkin.—Papa, may I have this bit of paper on the floor? it is your tailor’s bill—says, “400 dollars for your last year’s clothes.”
Mr. Pipkin.—Tom, go to bed, and learn never to interrupt your father when he is talking. Yes, as I was saying, Mrs. Pipkin, wives should hold up their end of the yoke; and it is high time there was a little retrenchment here; superfluities must be dispensed with.
Bridget.—Please, sir, there are three baskets of champagne just come for you, and four boxes of cigars.
Mr. Pipkin.—Will you please lock that door, Mrs. Pipkin, till I can get a chance to say what I have to say to you on this subject? I was thinking to-day, that you might dispense with your nursery maid, and take care of baby yourself. He don’t cry much, except at nights; and since I’ve slept alone up stairs, I don’t hear the little tempest at all. It is really quite a relief—that child’s voice is a perfect ear-splitter.