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- NUMBER 25,
OLMSTEAD &. 0.» PUBLISHERS.
LOUIS DON.
She came into the room—my teacher, Miss Ellen
Norton—in a swift, flurried sort of way, and sitting
down by mamma’s chair, she burst into tears.
‘ “Why, Ellen, what is the matter?” asked mam-
ma, in a voice full of surprise and solicitation, and
she leaned forward and took her hand,
_ Miss Norton is quite at home at cur house, and
“ would bring any trouble she had to mamma’s sym-
pathy, for whom, I believe, she has more love and
reverence than for anybody in the world.
. My mother and Miss Norton were old and very
dear friends, and when my teacher's father failed
and died, and her mother followed her husband in
a little while, and left. their daughter in her youth,
‘and grace, and sweetness, in the cold and loneli-
ness of the world, mamma sent for her to come to
us, and offered her a home for life under our own
roof. But Miss Norton would not consent to that.
She said God had left her still health and educa-
tion, which must be employed in some service for
herself and. the world; and when she ‘insisted,
mamma and papa used their influence, and ob-
tained a situation for her among the teachers at
the academy.
That is a long time ago, at ‘Least it seems so ‘to
me; but they say the years go swifter’ as they
grow heavier on our heads; at any rate, I became
a pupil at the academy the very week on which
Miss Norton entered it as teacher, and that is three
un ago.
« Miss Norton did not answer for a minute, but
* the tears flowed through the hand which shielded
her eyes, and mamma stroked the other, and asked
in her soft, tender voice, “Ellen, my child, what is
At last she looked up with her
stained, flushed face and quivering lips. | % .
“ye got to give him up, Mrs. Hammond,’
“Give who up?” asked mamma.
“That boy—Louis Don. There’s no use | in ate
tempting to screen him any longer.” \"""~"
“JIas he been guilty of any new offence ?”
“Yes; and Mr. Allen, our President, says that
this time he cannot overlook it; an example must
be made for the sake of the other scholars; and I
had not the heart to make any plea in his behalf.
He must go, and yet, Mrs. [ammond, I have loved| t
that boy. I hoped to save him!” and the tears of
Miss Norton flowed afresh.
“I'm sorry—I’m sorry,” and mamma shook her
head, still holding Miss Norton’s hand,
- That's all we can say, I know, for to do now
seems beyond my power. This last disobedience
of his was like the rest, not malicious, but daring,
foolish, defiant. Just beyond the academy grounds
there stands a large pear tree, bending under balf-
ripened fruit. Mr. Allen alluded to it the other
morning after prayers, and absolutely interdicted
any boy's approaching the tree. It did not belong
to the academy, and he'added, with much impres-
siveness, that any pupil who violated this command
would be guilty of theft, and could no longer be an
inmate of the school.
“And this boy took the fruit afterwards, It was
a grave offence, and doubly aggravated under the
circumstances, Ellen.”
“] know it, dear Mrs. Hammond. I donot seek
to excuse him; and yet, remember what this boy's
moral cultivation has been; remember that he was
left fatherless and motherless before he could know
either of his parents,and that he has been, so far,
brought up by a careless, indifferent, good-natured,
half profligate uncle, and that all his perceptions of
right and wrong are confused and obscure. Ie
has been taught to regard an act of this kind as
something shrewd, brave, fine, manly, and this
yery night his uncle will laugh at the boy at home,
when he recounts the whole transaction, and slap
him on the shoulder approvingly, and say it was a
jolly lark, and that ‘that boy’ ’s nobody's fool,’ and
he’s ‘bound to make his way in the world.’” ,
~«Q, most shameful !” said mamma, and her voice
was pendulous betwixt indignation and pity.
“Yes; and what could one expect from a boy
whose moral instincts'were thus warped and per-
‘verted! And yet what noble possibilities there are
ig that boy! what a power for good or for evil he
‘will be in the world! Tow he shrinks from, and
Joathes anything that he really sees is mean and
contemptible! What a bright, warm, generous na-
ture @ his is! I would trust him, at any time, with
BOSTON, THURSDAY
uncounted gold.) Ie would shrink this moment
from a lie, that is, what he would call a low, mean,
sneaking lie, with profound indignation. He has
more influence over the boys than: any other
scholar in my department; and O, if conscientious
and judicious parents had planted the right seeds
in that affluent soil—if true, solid principles had
taken their strong, deep roots in that boy’s soul,
what a man he might become! and now he will be
lost—inevitably lost!” and here poor Miss Norton,
my fair and sweet young teacher, sobbed as if her
heart would break. And mamma laid her hand
once more soothingly and caressingly on the young
Jady’s arm.
“Don’t say that, my dear child,” she said. “You
know in whose power it is to save him,”
“I-know it, .O dearly beloved friend of my
mother; and yet, my heart has yearned so over
that boy—I have so longed to be the means of sav-
ing him; and when he goes out from the academy
he will go out from all right influences into an at-
mosphere which can only nourish the weak and
evil side of his nature; and he is so impressible,
“| so strongly gregarious, so full of high animal spir-
its, that are always effervescing in fun and frolic,
and what he calls ‘scrapes,’ and all these will in-
evitably lead him into temptation. May God de-
liver him from -evil, poor fatherless, motherless
child!” said, fervently, mY teacher, Miss Hilen
Norton.
I went up to bert don't think ay body had no-
ticed that I was in the room before—and put my
arms about her neck. «
“Q Miss Norton,” I ‘said, “y am sure that if
Louis knew how bad you felt he would try to bea
better boy !” .
She smiled through her tears.
“I believe be would, my dear, if he could only
understand it, for he really seems attached to me.”
-Just then my brother Guy called me to come
out and look at the fine trout which he had caught
in the brook, and when I returned, my teacher had
gon
g
Late on that same afternoon mamma sent me
with some early strawberries to old Mrs. Mat-
thew’s grand-daughter, who. is just conyalescing
from the typhoid fever. The wind blew fresh from
the distant shore, and suddenly it seized the napkin
which ¢overed the fruit, and tossed and whirled it
in the air like a swarm of snow-flakes, and another
swift gust caught my bonnet, and swept it over the
bars into the wheat field.
A TRUSTY MESSENGER, re
JUNE 18, 1863. ‘
“O dear, what.shall -I do ?” I cried, in. my dis-
may, not knowing which to start after first. -
“Hurrah !—that’s jolly!” cried,a clear, merry
voice, close at my ear, and turning, I beheld Louis
Don, his great black eyes flashing and dancing for
fun,
“O Louis, bow can you. laugh at me ‘now? 1
| eried, just ready to break into tears.
“Well, I won't again, Mary; it's too bad.”
Making a dart’ for the napkin, seizing that, and
then springing over the fence, he returned in a
moment with both the lost articles, and held them
up to me, triumphantly saying— coat
“Wasn't that pretty well done, now?” 4):
“Yes; thank you, Louis,” and.as I took them
from his hand, and looked in his handsome, boyish
face, the thought of all that bad transpired betwixt
mamma and Miss Norton that afternoon returned
to me, and I exclaimed—
“O Louis, if you only did everything as well! r
Those great, dark eyes of his grew full of serious
wonder, as he asked— . * .
“What do you mean, Mary ?”
“I mean, Louis, that it wasn’t well for you to
climb Farmer Stewart’s pear tree, especially after
what Mr. Allen had said to all of us.” ,
Ile started and looked confused a moment.
“Where did you learn that?” he. stammered:
“Have the boys found it out? But its safe with
you, I know.”
I think Louis Tikes. me every much, as I ‘do him,
for he is always bringing me some pretty shell, or
early flower, or deserted robin’s nest, which proves
that Tam a favorite of his.
He did not wait this time to get my answer, but
he burst into a loud laugh, and clapped his hands.
“O,” said he, “it was fun, the way I came it
over old Farmer ‘Stewart. Uncle John said it was
the best joke of the season, and he nearly split his
sides laughing when I told him.”
. *O Louis, “don't t—don't ; it was stealing to take
those pears, which didn’t belong to you.”
“Stealing!” He gave a low whistle, which ex-
pressed a great deal of skepticism and contempt, a a
little anger, too, - “You are a little prude, Mary
Hammond; but for all that, you don’t think I’m a
thief?”
“We won't talk about that now, only I want to
ask you a question, Louis.”
“Well, let’s have it,” putting his hands in a his
pockets and looking comically serious. .
“Don’t you love our teacher, Miss Norton?”
22 SCHOOL ‘STREET, BOSTON.
Ob aut
His eyes answered for him, so did hia lips— :
“ “Of course I do.’ She's just a darling, I tell you,
Mary; I'd go a long way to serve ber!"
“And it would really trouble you to know she
was deeply grieved, so that she cried as though her
heart would break ?”
“Yes, indeed, Mary. Ifas anybody been trou-
bling her?”
“Yes, Louis, troubling her more ‘than you can
e8s.”” .
“Who?” And this boy of eleven ‘years looked
fierce'as the picture of some old paynim knight in
his armor.
~ You, Louis.”
&72—what do you mean, Mary Hammond ? ”
» And then, I hardly know how I did it, but there,
-| standing before the bars of the great wheat field,
‘/{ with. the: winds running in-and out of the silver
tresses;and shaking them up until they seemed
‘| like drifts of snow, I told Louis all the conversa-°
tion that had transpired betwixt Miss Norton and
mamma that afternoon—I suppose that I did not
use just the language that my teacher did, though
her words seemed to come right to my lips while I
talked, and I know that I did not lose one of the
ideas she expressed, and that when I ceased I found
myself crying.
Louis Don had grown serious—serious as I
never saw him before in my life, while he listened,
and those large, black eyes of his seemed to have
melted into a mist.of tears when I stopped. .
‘*I didn’t think of Miss Norton when Iwent *P
the tree,” he said.
“And if you bad, and known just how it would
grieve her, you would never have taken the pears *
—twould you, Louis?”
“Of course I.wouldn't; I would have cut my:
right hand off first.. But now it’s done, Mary.”
“Yes, and you'll be turned out of school, Louis.” *
“I s'pose I shall. Ican stand that!” and for a
moment the handsome face was reckless, defiant.
“But jast think how Miss Norton will grieve for
you, because she loves you.” I saw that was the
tender place in his heart.
“Yes,” and he winced as though the thought hurt *
him—“I'd do “almost anything to save Aer from)
feeling bad.”
“But O Louis, if all she ‘said was really true, and.
you Bhould grow up and become a bad man, after
all!”
- He was serious enough, now.
_ “Lnever thought of it in that light,” he said.’
“You know, Mary, that I love fun as I do my life,’ ,
and torun my neck into all break-neck scrapes,
and generally to have a good time; but as for do-
ing anything ‘real mean or + bad, why I'd scorn it’
with all my heart.”
“I believe you mean what you say; but Louis
there is one way in which you can gladden Miss
Norton’s heart—you who have grieved it so many
times,
“How? I will go a long way to do it?” ©"
“It will be only a short’ one. Go to President
Allen; tell him all you have done, and that you.
are sorry for it.” '
* He buried his head in his hands—
“O Mary, anything but thaf—I can’t do that, :
said Louis Don.
' Tt is the only thing now, Louis, that can be.
done, and it will be for Miss Norton’s sake.”
“But you don’t know—you can’t tell,” he went
on, half incoherently, talking to himself—“you’re
a girl, Mary, and’ don’t understand how it would
hurt my pride.”
. “¥es I do, Louis, and I know you will be a bet-
ter, braver, nobler boy always, if you do this.”
“Why, Mary, you talk like a preacher ;¥ and he
looked at me half in wonder, half wavering.
I said some more words—I can’t remember what
they were, but they came right out of my heart.-
At last Louis took my hand.
“I think Iwill go,” he said, and he wrung my
a|hand; and then he started off, and there was a
look in his face which made me think he would go
straight to President Allen. =<
The next morning after prayers I trembled when’,
the President rose up, for I knew that unless Louis
had acknowledged the truth, that the time had
come for his dismissal and disgrace. But the Pres~
ident went on to speak of some trivial matters, and
then in a moment dismissed us all to our classes,
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