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OLMSTEAD & CO., PUBLISHERS.
bee ; pepo agttt
For the Companion, 1}
EORGE TURNER'S TEMPTATION.
: ‘At eighteen George Turner was a fall and come-
ly youth, healthful and ambitious, and able to look
every body honestly in the face. ’
-’ His parents were poor and:had a large family,
and about the time that George entered his nine-
teenth year, he solicited and obtained bis father’s
permission to go out and shift for himself. He
packed his trunk and was off early one autumn
morning, for a distant city, with letters from his
pastor to influential citizens, recommending him to
business. "FL tae SE] :
Every thing was new to him, for he had been a
hard-working boy, and knew.little of the wosld
saying what he had learned from books, and though
he had made tolerably good use of these, yet he
had none of that knowledge of and men things
which is to be gained by travel and business alone.
It was late when he arrived at the city, after a day
of hard riding, but pleasant and memorable with
novel sights and sounds, so much that George felt
at the end of the journey that he had learned more
in that single trip from home than in any whole
week of his life. 5 5 0 '
When he stepped from the cars and walked
through the streets of the city, the lamps were all
lighted, and among the thronging passengers upon
the sidewalk who brushed by him as they hurried
to and fro, the thundering: carts and coaches, a
band of music playing in a public balcony and the
~, thousands of human voices that bummed and shout-
éd along the squares, the young man began to be
alittle bewildered. :
His first’ thought was to find a place to lodge,
and having been directed to the residence of a
merchant who had been a friend of his father, he
~ set about trying to find it. - : wae
People of whom he inquired the residence of the
merchant stared, and told. him they knew nothing
about it, and finally one named over four or five
“men of the same name with George’s friend, so
that he was about as much in the dark as ever.
At last he was told to go to the directory and guess
as near as he could; accordingly, he sought awhile
“there, but in vain, and finally he decided to look
for Mr. F———-, one of the good men to whom
his pastor had given him letters of introduction.
Finding out the number of Mr. F ’s house
_ by the directory, he ascertained from the bystand-
ers the locality of the street, and set off in quest
(of it. He had not gone far, however, before he
lost his way and was obliged to inquire again. Be-
ing set right, he essayed once more to find his des-
“ tination, and once more failed. 2
George now began to feel tired, and to tell the
“truth, he was about balfdiscouraged, too, To
want for a meal when he was hungry, or a bed
when he was tired, or a home when he was lone-
some, was an entirely new sensation to him, not-
withstanding that he had been bred up to the most
frugal fare and accustomed to narrow means.
The, bells of the city struck nine, and the night
seemed likely to close around our young traveller
alone in the street, when a man sitting on the box
of an elegant carriage, before a large public house,
observed him, as he wandered slowly by the cross-
ing, looking this way and that, and in the “most
polite manner in the world offered to carry him to
any place he wished to find.’ George at once Te-
“peated the name and. number, and jumping into
the’ cushioned seat, felt ‘himself whirled swiftly
» along with an easy, delicious motion, that would
_ have charmed him to sleep had he notvarrived 50
“soon at the residence of Mr. F———- Alight-
- ing with many warm thanks .to his polite driver,
“he was much astonished to hear that individual
demand of him a quarter of a dollar. He paid it,
however, and was soon in-doors, sitting down to
a comfortable supper. . | ,
have been thus particular in describing George’s
entrance into the world, that you might remember
when you come to read of his temptation, how sim-
ple-minded and ignorant he was, and be better
able to pity him and judge of his thoughts and
feelings when about to do acriminal act for the
~ first time in his life.
Mr, F—~—’s business was in the market, ear-
ly three-fourths of a mile from his house, so that
he did not come home to dinner, and was away
* nearly all the time except evenings. He welcomed
ALBERT AND FIDO.
George, however, and cheerfully assisted him to
find employment. He had been’ there nearly a
week, without obtaining a suitable opening, when
one day Mr, F- came home from market,
contrary to custom, before noon. . ILe looked trous
bled, and soon, began to make inquiries of his wife
and daughter about his pocket-book. ‘He had al-
ways carried itin an inside pocket of his loose
coat, and he declared that he had put it there the
night before, as the coat hung in the hall, That
mornipg he had put on the coat as usual, and on
putting in his hand for the money when he arrived
at the market, it was gone. No one gt home had
seen it. Myrta, the old black cook, was too faith-
ful and well known in the house to be. mistrusted,
and George was above suspicion. Had he not been
entirely innocent of the whereabouts of the money
he would certainly have betrayed himself, being
but a green country lad and unused to dishonesty.
M was soon satisfied that no one
about the house could account for the loss of his
money, and with many bitter self-reproaches for
his carelessness in, leaving his treasure so exposed,
he settled upon the reluctant conclusion that a thief}
had shoved the night-latch with a false key in the
night and taken the pocket-book from his coat in
the hall. His wife and daughter thought different-
ly, as they said it would be impossible after such
an entrance for the thief to leave the door as he
found it without making a noise. They supposed
Mr. F-—— must have had his pocket picked on
his way to market, but he said it could not be.
George obtained a place a day or two after and
bade adieu to bis benefactor. His new home was
in a flourishing town fifteen miles out of the city.
On the first morning after his arrival there, while
going to his work, having occasion to stow some-
thing away in the breast-pocket of his loose coat,
he felt some article there that was not his, and
drawing it out, what should he see but the lost
pocket-book of his friend, Mr. F——! It had
been put there by mistake, when Mr. F——"s
coat and his own hung together on the rack in the
se young man’s heart beat strangely. He held
jn his hand more money than he had ever had in
his life, and what was more, money that was given
up as lost, by the owner, and would never be in-
quired for again, and already he began to form in
OT
ow
setae Took corr
his mind bright schemes for laying it ont to ad-
vantage, ‘He thought how much his father, and
mother, and brothers, and sisters at home needed
money. He turned it over and over in his hand
and counted it. One hundred and twenty dollars!
it would pay for sending Sarah to the high school
in the next village all the year’ round, and like
enough it would help send James, too.’ “I'll buy
mother a new dress, and carry it to her Thanksgiv-
ing Day, when I go home,” was his next thought,
and then he determined to buy some presents for
every-member of the family. 7 it
But then came a misgiving, almost as soon as he
had said thisto himself. If his father, and mother,
and brothers, and sisters should ask him, as of
course they would, where he got so much money,
what should he tell them? ' Would he not be
tempted to say, “I earned it?” But that wouldn't
be true, certainly. ‘Why should I prefer to say
that when they ask meso simple a question?
Why not feel perfectly free and frank, and ready to
tell just where and how I got the money? There's
something wrong about it. Father and mother
would say so if I told them all.» They’d say I did
very wrong to keep it, and that’s why I should lie,
like enough, if I carried it home, rather than ever let
them know how I came by it. I should feel guilty.
But then I haven’t been stealing. | I never stole
and never will, Why isn’t this money mine, and
why in the world need I feel so mean about keep-
ing it? I should like to know.”. And George Turn-
er walked, whistling, towards the shop, trying to
feel exultant over his good fortune. -'° ' =>: 11+
Through the day that ‘pocket-book was never
out of his thoughts. Once he made up bis mind
to put the money in a bank, and say nothing till it
drew compound interest, but on second thought he
took that back. teyr aa gltory
Tle grew more and more uneasy.’ No plan that
he could devise for disposing of his troublesome
treasure seemed feasible. ‘The money burned in
his pocket.’ Wis brain worked as it had never
worked over his hardest problem in mathematics—
thinking, and thinking, and thinking. His em-
ployer noticed the blunders he made, but as it was
the first day, he attributed them to inexperience,
and passed over them kindly. He little knew what
was passing in George’s mind. mane
22 SCHOOL STREET, BOSTON.
al months, I had almost said years, of ordinary
“| life—older in knowledge of himself and experience
of himself.” A great temptation had got hold of
him, and the ‘struggle with it that day wore deep
marks in his very soul, never to be forgotten. *
, At night, when alone in his room, his young
manhood rallied, and the strength of his early train-
ing asserted itself anew. - Happily for him, he had
not yet learned in thé school of dissipation the
myriad ways of self-gratification that beguile away
a young man’s money, and after a few more weak
endeavors the tempter left him, and his good an-
gel prevailed: He sat down’ and wrote’ Mr.
F. the following letter: oo
I found your Jost pocket-book
You will remember that
pocket-book till this morning, strange though it
seem. asten to return it to you, and hope you
will find every thing as you it.
t Grorce TcRNER.”
George felt like anew man. Ile had conquered
in his first hard struggle with crime, and he breathed
easy. He fell on his knees and thanked God, and
that night he slept the sleep of peace.: After this,
his work went smoothly along, and a noble con-
sciousness of right, that dwelt within him all the
time, made him superior to even the influence of
homesickness, and when, two or three days after he
had sent Mr. F-——— the letter and the lost
money, that gentleman wrote back to him, com
mending his honesty, in the warmest terms, and
enclosing ten dollars, you may judge how ‘happy
he was. ee : .
Nor was this all that Mr. F- did. - He
said nothing to George about it, but on the receipt
of the lost one hundred and twenty dollars, he
said to his wife and daughter, . .
“This money I had given: up as lost. -It has
come back again by no effort of mine. George is
a noble, honest fellow, and he shall have it!” -,
, So he sent it’ forthwith to George's employer,
telling him to keep it a secret, but to use in his
business the one hundred and twenty dollars which
he; conveyed to him, as the property of young
Turner, and allow him all it should gain by the day
he became of age. +’. pelo et Ma
~ George prospered in business and was advanced
rapidly in wages and favor, but he knew nothing
of the deposit made by Mr. F- till the day
he was twenty-one, when his employer presented
him a thousand dollars over and above what was
due on his salary. rot nr.
. Everybody loved George, and of course, then,
In the course of another year she became his
wife, and her father and George becoming partners
in business soon after, the noble young man was
able to maintain his parents in easy circumstances,
and reap the daily reward of his victory over temp-
tation. > . T. B
——+9
ALBERT AND FIDO,
Fido was a half-spaniel, and when Albert's father
bought him he was a very small puppy. Albert
was quite carried away with his cunning present,
and as he did not have to work very hard, for his
parents were well off, he spent a great deal of his
time in training Fido to perform curious tricks and
understand a great many things that dogs do not
generally know. He learned him .to pick anything
out of the water several feet below the surface; to
untie a knot, to shut the door and open it, to wear
spectacles, to hold a book on his paws and sit with
a pipe in his mouth, as you see in the picture. ©
“But the most remarkable thing of all that Fido
learned to do was to tell the time of day. That is,
he would listen when the clock was striking and
bark once for each stroke, till finally he understood
it so well that when any of the family told him to
goaend bring them the time of day, he would run
and look up to the clock till somebody imitated the
number of strokes of the nearest hour, when’ he
would immediately go back and bark. an equal
Poor fellow! He grew older that day by sever-
nan sateme
Nee, anne mtn tin ache a er
number of times, hardly ever making a mistake. °
Mr, F———’s daughter could not be an exception. ©
bot
