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bor, and, even if they had been at hand, I should hardly dare to risk my strength, not yet renovated after my sickness, and, which was so essential to mother's safety, in an effort that might fail.

"So the hours went on, and the day that was like night wore to a close. In the evening mother brightened up a little. She was calm now, and for the time free from pain. There was an unearthly beauty in the large, bright hollow eyes, and the thin cheeks, where the rose of fever burned. The disease had worked swiftly. Even this revival might be only a forerunner of death.

"I want to tell you, dear,' she said, 'what to do in case I should not get well.'

"I hid my face in the quilt, and tried not to sob, while she went on, in a sweet, calm, thoughtful way, to tell me of the things that in my inexperience I might forget. I must not be wasteful of food or fuel; if the snow — which was still falling should cover the chimney so that I could not make a fire, I must wrap myself and the children in all the warm things I could find, there were some new blankets in the chest in the chamber, she said, that she had meant for me. I must get those if I needed them. 'And if I am not here to encourage you, my child,' she said tenderly, 'don't give up hoping. Help cannot be very far off. Some of the neighbors will come to us, or father will work his way through the snow, and get home. And, Mercy, don't be afraid of the poor body that I shall leave behind me. Think of it as the empty house that I have used for a little while, and be sure it can do you no harm.'

"I promised all she asked, and hid my tears as well as I could. While she slept, and I could do nothing for her, I kept the children quiet with playthings and stories. I cooked bread and meat, and made a great kettle of porridge against the time when we might not be able to have a fire; I hunted in the garret for bits of old

boards and broken furniture that might serve for fuel.

"For two days the wind held, and then there fell an awful silence as of the grave.

"Sometimes I read from the Psalms, or from the Gospel of John, which mother dearly loved; and though she did not take much notice, but lay in a stupor most of the time, the holy words were comfort and company to me. At other times I sat in mute grief, watching her painful breathing, and the gradual pinching and sharpening of her features as the relentless disease worked upon them. O, it was hard! I don't think many lives know so much and such utter misery. In my anxiety and grief, and the mental bewilderment resulting from loss of sleep, I forgot to reckon the days as they passed.

"But one day, as I sat by mother's pillow, my mind full of the dread that seemed now as if it might any moment be realized, of the awfulness of being left alone in that living tomb with the marble image of what was and yet was not my mother, the clock struck nine in the morning. Somewhere the sun was shining, I thought. Somewhere there were happy lovers, merry-makings in divers places, wedding-bells ringing.

"A faint sound disturbed my revery. I started up and listened intently; but the noise did not recur, and I dropped my head again, thinking my fancy had cheated me.

"I don't know why it was that what failed to reach my strained ear found its way to mother's; but all at once, from having been in a stupid state from which I could hardly rouse her, she opened her eyes, and said, 'What is that?'

"Do you hear anything?' I asked, trembling. But before she could answer, I too heard a shout.

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were cutting their way through the drift, they came every minute nearer and nearer. Pretty soon I heard a voice that set my heart beating and made me sob again. It was Ephraim's. "Are you all alive?' he cried.

home. Yet he had come as fast as the roads would let him, travelling night and day in his eagerness to reach us. He told us of houses snowed up, and people and animals perishing miserably. And by God's grace we were “We are all alive, but mother is saved, even to the cows, which in their very sick.' hunger had broken loose from their "I don't know how long it took to stalls, and eaten the hay from the tunnel that huge snow-drift. I sat holding mother's hand till there was a noise at the door. I sprang up then, and the next instant stood face to face with Ephraim. And we did not meet as we had parted.

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"And so my life's greatest joy and pain came to me by the storm. It gave Ephraim back to me. For forty years as man and wife we had never a hard word.

"Tis thirty years since he went, thirty years of Heaven's peace for him. I did not think to wait so long when he went. The children have been very good to me, but I've missed their father always. But I shall go to him soon. Son Ephraim, I am ninetytwo to-morrow!"

TOUJOURS AMOUR.

RITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin,

At what age does Love begin?
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen
Summers three, my fairy queen,
But a miracle of sweets,
Soft approaches, sly retreats,
Show the little archer there,

Hidden in your pretty hair:

When didst learn a heart to win?
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!

"Oh!" the rosy lips reply,
"I can't tell you if I try!

'T is so long I can't remember:
Ask some younger Miss than I!'

Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face,
Do your heart and head keep pace?

When does hoary Love expire,
When do frosts put out the fire?

Can its embers burn below

All that chill December snow?
Care you still soft hands to press,
Bonny heads to smooth and bless?
When does Love give up the chase?
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face!

"Ah!" the wise old lips reply,
"Youth may pass and strength may die;
But of Love I can't foretoken:

Ask some older Sage than I!”

James Parton.

AMONG THE WORKERS IN SILVER.

EXCURSIONISTS to Lake Supe- visiting that region discovered thou

rior, when they get away up in the northern part of Lake Huron, where are those "four thousand islands" lying flat and green in the sun, without a tree or a hut upon them, see at length, in the distance, a building like a large storehouse, evidently not made by Indian hands. The thing is neither rich nor rare; the only wonder is, how it got there. For many hours before coming in sight of this building, no sign of human life is visible, unless, perchance, the joyful passengers catch sight of a dug-out canoe, with a blanket for a sail, in which an Indian fisherman sits solitary and motionless, as though he too were one of the inanimate features of the scene. On drawing near this most unexpected structure, the curiosity of the travellers is changed into wild wonder. It is a storehouse with all the modern improvements, and over the door is a well-painted sign, bearing the words,

RASPBERRY JAM.

If the present writer, when he first beheld this sign, had read thereon, "Opera-Glasses for hire," or "Kid Gloves cleaned by a new and improved method," he could not have been more surprised or more puzzled. The explanation, however, was very simple. Many years ago, it seems, a Yankee

Put

sands upon thousands of acres of raspberry-bushes hanging full of fruit, and all going to waste. He also observed that Indian girls and squaws in considerable numbers lived near by. ting this and that together, he conceived the idea of a novel speculation. In the summer following he returned to the place, with a copper kettle, many barrels of sugar, and plenty of large stone jars. For one cent a pail he had as many raspberries picked as he could use; and he kept boiling and jarring until he had filled all his vessels with jam, when he put them on board a sloop, took them down to Detroit, and sold them. The article being approved, and the speculation being profitable, he returned every year to the raspberry country, and the business grew to an extent which warranted the erection of this large and well-appointed building. In the Western country, the raspberry jam made in the region of Lake Huron has been for twenty years an established article of trade. We had the curiosity once to taste tarts made of it, and can testify that it was as bad as heart could wish. It appeared to be a soggy mixture of melted brown sugar and small seeds.

But that is neither here nor there. The oddity of our adventure was in discovering such an establishment in

spise upon others and love upon ourselves.

But there is something at Providence less to be expected even than seventy-two manufactories of jewelry: it is the largest manufactory of solid silver-ware in the world! In a city so elegant and refined as Providence, where wealth is so real and stable, we should naturally expect to find on the sideboards plenty of silver plate; but we were unprepared to discover there three or four hundred skilful men making silver-ware for the rest of mankind, and all in one establishment,

Company. This is not only the lar-
gest concern of the kind in existence,
but it is the most complete. Every
operation of the business, from the
melting of the coin out of which the
ware is made, to the making of the
packing-boxes in which it is conveyed
to New York, takes place in this one
congregation of buildings.
Nor do we
hesitate to say, after an attentive ex-
amination of the products of European
taste, that the articles bearing the
stamp of this American house are not
equalled by those imported. There
is a fine simplicity and boldness of
outline about the forms produced here,
together with an absence of useless
and pointless ornament, which render
them at once more pleasing and more
useful than any others we have seen.

such a place. Since that time we have often had similar surprises, especially in New England, where curious industries have established themselves in the most out-of-the-way nooks. In a hamlet of three or four houses and a church, we see such signs as "Melodeon Manufactory." At a town in Northern Vermont we find four hundred men busy, the year round, in making those great Fairbanks Scales, which can weigh an apple or a train of cars. There is nothing in St. Johnsbury which marks it out as the town in the universe fittest to produce huge scales for mankind. The business exists there because, forty that of the Gorham Manufacturing years ago, there were three excellent heads in the place upon the shoulders of three brothers, who put those heads together, and learned how to make and how to sell scales. All over New England, industries have rooted themselves which appear to have no congruity with the places in which they are found. We heard the other day of a village in which are made every year three bushels of gold rings. We ourselves passed, some time ago, in a remarkably plain New England town, a manufactory of fine diamond jewelry. In another town - Providence - there are seventy-two manufactories of common jewelry. Now what is there in the character or in the situation of this city of Roger Williams, that should have invited thither so many makers of cheap trinkets? It is a solid town, that makes little show for its great wealth, and contains less than the average number of people capable of wearing tawdry ornaments. Nevertheless, along with machine-shops of Titanic power, and cotton-mills of vast extent, we find these seventy-two manufactories of jewelry. The reason is, that, about the year 1795, one man, named Dodge, prospered in Providence by making such jewelry as the simple people of those simple old times would buy of the passing pedler. His prosperity lured others into the business, until it has grown to its present proportions, and supplies half the country with the glittering trash which we all de

It was while going over this interesting establishment, that the raspberryjam incident recurred to us. This thing, however, is both rich and rare; and yet the wonder remains how it got there. It got there because, forty years ago, an honest man began there a business which has grown steadily to this day. It got there just as all the rooted businesses of New England got where we find them now. In the brief history of this one enterprise we may read the history of the industry of New England. Not the less, however, ought the detailed history to be written; for it would be a book full of every kind of interest and instruction.

It was an honest man, we repeat, who founded this establishment. We believe there is no house of business of the first class in the world, of thirty years' standing, the success of which is not clearly traceable to its serving the public with fidelity. An old clerk of Mr. A. T. Stewart of New York informed us that, in the day of small things, many years ago, when Mr. Stewart had only a retail dry-goods store of moderate extent, one of the rules of the establishment was this: "Don't recommend goods; but never fail to point out defects." Now a man struggling with the difficulties of a new business, who lays down a rule of that nature, must be either a very honest or a very able man. He is likely to be both, for sterling ability is necessarily honest. It is not surprising, therefore, that Mr. Stewart is now the monarch of the dry-goods trade in the world; and we fully believe that the history of all lasting success would disclose a similar root of honesty. In all the businesses which have to do with the precious metals and precious stones, honesty is the prime necessity; because in them, though it is the easiest thing in the world to cheat, the cheat is always capable of being detected and proved. A great silverhouse holds itself bound to take back an article of plate made forty years ago, if it is discovered that the metal is not equal in purity to the standard of the silver coin of the country in which it was made. The entire and perfect natural honesty, therefore, of Jabez Gorham, was the direct cause of the prosperity of the house which he founded. He is now a serene and healthy man of eighty-two, long ago retired from business. He walks about the manufactory, mildly wondering at the extent to which its operations have extended. "It is grown past me," he says with a smile; "I know nothing about all this."

In the year 1805, this venerable old man was an apprentice to that Mr. Dodge who began in Providence the manufacture of ear-rings, breastpins,

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and rings, the only articles made by the Providence jewellers for many years. In due time Jabez Gorham set up for himself; and he added to the list of articles the important item of watch-chains of a peculiar pattern, long known in New England as the "Gorham chain." The old gentleman gives an amusing account of the simple manner in which business was done in those days. When he had manufactured a trunkful of jewelry, he would jog away with it to Boston, where, after depositing the trunk in his room, he would go round to all the jewellers in the city to inform them of his arrival, and to say that his jewelry would be ready in his room for inspection on the following morning at ten o'clock, and not before. Before the appointed hour every jeweller in the town would be at his door; but as it was a point of honor to give them all an equal chance, no one was admitted till the clock struck, when all pushed in in a body. The jewelry was spread out on the bed, around which all the jewellers of Boston, in 1820, could gather without crowding. Each man began by placing his hat in some convenient place, and it was in his hat that he deposited the articles selected by him for purchase. When the whole stock had been transferred from the bed to the several hats, Mr. Gorham took a list of the contents of each; whereupon the jewellers packed their purchases, and carried them home. In the course of the day, the bills were made out; and the next morning Mr. Gorham went his rounds and collected the money. The business being thus happily concluded, he returned to Providence, to work uninterruptedly for another six months. In this manner, Jabez Gorham conducted business for sixteen years, before he ever thought of attempting silver-ware. Such was his reputation for scrupulous honesty, that, for many years before he left the business, none of his customers ever subjected his work to any test whatever, not even to that of a pair of scales. It is his boast, that, during the whole of his business career of more

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