THE BABIES' FOURTH-OF-JULY PROCESSION.
[HOW JOHNNIE WENT TO SCHOOL.]
BY MARY A. PORTERFIELD.
Little John worked in a barrel factory in the thriving town of E——, in Pennsylvania.
Piling staves or rolling barrels all day long is not very enjoyable work, but Johnnie did not grumble: no, indeed, he was too happy to get even the hardest and dullest work to do. He wanted to go to school, and his aunt had said if he could save money enough to buy books and clothes, he might go. He was delighted with this permission, and clattered down-stairs, three steps at a time, to hunt up Pat, his friend and confidant, who would double his happiness by sharing it.
Pat was a newsboy on the railroad, a cheery, good-natured Irish lad, whose mother had died years ago, when he was but a blue-eyed baby. The new mother that came into the little whitewashed cabin by the railroad was too busy with her pigs, her garden, and her own little ones to pay much attention to Pat at first; though by-and-by she thought there was no room for him in the little home. Poor Pat! he had a hard time finding any place where there was room for him. At last Johnnie persuaded his aunt to let the forsaken Irish boy share his bed. They had been firm friends, sharing their boyish griefs and joys with the complete sympathy of childhood; they were brothers in heart, if not in name.
Johnnie and Pat were industrious, contented, and happy. During the day they worked on the cars and in the factory, but in the evening the kind aunt taught them the common-school studies. Both boys eagerly longed for the time when they could enjoy fuller advantages for education.
Pat saw his way but dimly, but Johnnie's happiness seemed near at hand. It was a touching sight to see the two boys once or twice a week bring out their store of savings. No miser ever thrilled at the sight and touch of heaps of gold as those two boys at their paltry handful of silver and copper.