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Show HIS LITTLE BOY JIMMY. "You ain't got a Job of work of no kind you would like to git done, have you?" I was leaving my home one cold and snowy morning, and had Just reached the pavement when a small, thin and ragged man, without an overcoat, over-coat, and with a hungry look in his face, stopped to ask me this question. There was an eager and appealing note in his voice, and I felt sure that he was sincere when he said: "I would do anything at all that you could give me to do, and I would do it the very best I could. I'm willin' to work if I can only get the work to do. Mebbe there is something you could I give me to do in your cellar. I'd oi?an it all up for you. and split up any wood you might happen to have to split up." Now it happened that I had had a load 'of thick pine slabs for kindling wood sent to my house the day before, and I wanted it sawed and split. The cellar was also in rather an untidy condition, con-dition, arid my wife had said at the breakfast table that she was sorry that old John, a colored man who came every other Friday to shake and clean her rugs, was sick and could not come that day. Here was a man to take old John'e place, and to split the kindlings and clean the cellar for me. I had had some disappointing and unfortunate experiences through employing em-ploying strange men who had come to my door asking for work, but something some-thing in this man's manner and his manifest need of employment caused me to say: "I think that I can give you work enough to last you about all day, if you are willing to saw and split wood and clean rugs." "Indeed I am. sir, and glad to git it to do. I'll do it the very best I can, see if I don't." I took the man into my cellar, and he went to work with a will. When I went home to my luncheon at noon I asked my wife if the man had cleaned the rugs to her satisfaction. "Indeed he did," she replied. "He did not leave a particle of dust in them, and he has that great pile of wood almost al-most all sawed and split already. He is certainly working faithfully. I have made him a pot of coffee to drink with his dinner, and it is ready for you to take down to him." "Taking the tray on which my wife had spread out the man's dinner, I went went into the cellar and found the man sawing away on a thick slab. "Thank you, sir; thank you very much," he said when I handed the tray of food to him. "I didn't expect to have you give me my dinner." "My wife thinks that you have well earned it in addition to the money I shall pay you, and I dare say that you J are hungry enough to eat it without much effort." "Hungry? I ain't had a thing under un-der the sun but a slice of dry bread to eat since yesterday noon." My wife had put a big yellow orange' on the tray, and the man said, as he seized it eagerly and put it into his pocket: "I'll save that for Jimmr. if vnu don't mind, sir." "For Jimmy?" "Yes, sir; he is my little boy, Jimmy Jim-my is. I reckon he'll open his eyes when he sees that orange, poor little chap. He's a cripple, my boy Jimmy is. Got his right leg cut off above the knoe by being run down by an electric. elec-tric. It hurt his back, too, so that it ain't likely that he will ever walk any more. He has suffered - terribly. He ain't been home from the hospital but two weeks, an' I've lost mj"3ob in thatr time, so I ain't been able to get him what I'd like to. His mother is dead, so there is just me and Jimmy an' his gran'mother. who lives with us. It's tough for a man to see his pore old mother an' his sick little chap suffer for eenough to eat an' fuel to keep 'em warm. You ain't no idee o' what a help this day's work will be to us. an' I kin see Jimmy's eyes shinin' now when I haul out that orange." -How old is Jimmy?" "Only 6, and small for that age. He ain't never goin' to be very big, and he'll never be strong. I'll always have to hustle for Jimmy. But all I ask Is a chance to hustle. I ain't no complaint com-plaint to make because I've got it to do an' the pore little chap sha'nt ever . be'made to feel that Ithink that he is a burden. The factory I been workin in has been runnin' only about one-third one-third time all winter, an' now it has shut down for good, so I ain't anything but odd Jobs to depend on. It makes it hard for me with all I want to do fer Jimmy." Here was a loving, and loyal father heart Poor and ignorant though he was he had a high and true conception' concep-tion' of his duty to poor Jimmy, whom I found to be a very thin, pale and suffering little unfortunate when I w:ent to see him. His father's story was entirely en-tirely true, and it was pathetic to wit ness his father's gratitude when, a few days later, I was able to tell him that I could get him when he called a "stid-dy "stid-dy job." "It ain't fer myself that I'm so glad of it," he said, almost tearfully. "It's fer my pore mother an' fer Jimmy." Selected. |