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Show Mrs. Murphy's Museum. One uf the saddtst things that ever came under my notice (said the Lanker's clerk) was there in Corning, duriug the war. Pan Murphy enlisted as a private and tbuaht very bravely. The boys all liked him, and hen a wound by and by weakened him doivn till carrying a musket was too heavy work for hi ti they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. He made money then, and sent it always to his wife to bank for him. She was a washer and ironer, and knew enough by hard experience to keep money when she got it. She didn't waste a penny. On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank account gr'w. She grieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-working life she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick and witliout a dollar in the world, and ' .he had a haunting dread of suffering so again. Well, at last Dan died, and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for Hui, telegraphed to Mrs Murphy to know if she would like to have him embalmed embalm-ed and sent home, when you know the usual custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a shallow hole, and then inform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy jumped to the conclusion that it would cost two or three dollars to embalm her dend hus I band, so she telegraphed "Yes." It was at the "wake" that the bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow. She uttered a wild, sad wail, that pierced every heart, and said : ' Siveuty-five dollars for stoffin' Dan, blister their sowls ! Did them divils suppose I was goin' to start a museum, that I'd dalin' in such cuii-assitiesl" cuii-assitiesl" The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the bouse. Mark Iwain, in Junes Galaxy. |