| OCR Text |
Show A BRIGHT MESSENGER. A few mornings ago I was on an elevated train in New York City. Facing me, as I sat down, was a uniformed messenger boy. He had just finished reading a newspaper and was going to tuck it away under the seat. Xot having a paper, I held out my hand. The little fellow looked up, smiled, rose, put the paper in my extended hand, bowed, touched his cap and reseated himself. Messenger boys here have the reputation of being be-ing bumptious and impudent. You may imagine, then, how this nice civility astonished and pleased me. 1 smiled and said: ( "You nice little, laddie. I'm very much obliged to you." The boy flushed, smiled, and fidgeted awkwardly. b We began to talk, and 1 gently drew out of htm his story. His mother was a widow, refined though poor. Knowing no business, she took any work she could find. This brought little money, so the laddie had to help out. And he was succeeding. "It is all mother, sir. She told me always to get up when she comes into a room, get her a chair and wait on her. I always put mother's shoes on for her, and take them off when J'm home. I keep them cleaned and in order, anyway. Mother says, vou have to wear old clothes, but there is no excuse for having them dirty" and he looked down, as if to make sure, at his own fixings clean as a new pin. "Before I began here" (touching the buttons of his uniform) "mother told me everything to do. I shut doors quietly, keep my hat off in a room, clean my feet well before I go in, move around softly, and when I am told to do something, if at first 1 do not understand clearly-, I excuse myself and ask what to do, all over again; but I never start on my errand till sure I know all about it." He said he had quite a number of customers, who required almost all of his time; that, he rarely, took home less than $15 for a week's work, and that his banner week was $23.50. The lad was not 14 years old. He gave his mother all th credit. His employers liked his manners; his manners were his mother's. You know that when grown people part in the street, if they just know each other, they bow or nod. If, however, you arc saying "Good-bye" do a real friend, you warmly shake hands. When the time, came for us to part I held out my hand and said: "Good-bye, little man. I'm very glad to have met you." 1 wish you could have seen him. He flushed, breathed hard, looked up timidly into my face, then, gently and nervously, put his hand in mine. I shook it warmly, and, walking away, turned after a few paces to nod another good-bye. There he stood, his eyes full of tears, the little messenger gentleman. Xo. I didn't go back to him. He was not sad, bless him; only over-happy; and. besides, be-sides, I hail to go on quickly; I felt a kind of full feeling in my own throat. Standard Union, Brooklyn. |
