No. 6. The Sailor Boy.-Little Jane's Christmas Box. upon his features, as in a voice choking with emotion, he replied Friend! have I a friend? No! 'tis unreal-it is mockery. All-all is lost to me, vanished gone! Listen, thou good old man, and pity. Once I had a father, whose hair was whitened by the frosts of seventy winters-a good, kind sire-but he died! I had a mother-a fond, affectionate, devoted mother-she who had first taught my infant tongue to lisp its Maker's name, and framed my mind for deeds which make an honorable man-she, too, died! I-I-had a wife and boy! for their dear sakes, I have seen the thunder cloud break from his mighty kennel, and his awful reverberations shake earth's centre-but I thought of them, and feared not! I have seen the lightning's play around my head, and heard the howlings of the midnight storm, and still I feared not! all availed nothing! Here-here beneath this cold earth they lie, fast in the deep sleep of death! What, then, is the world to me? All of my kin are buried, and I am left alone -desolate !" But it The minister of God made no reply-he clasped the hand of the heart-broken sailor, and they wept together! Kensington, 1842. Written for the Ladies' Garland. THE BY JAMES LUMBARD. Wand'rer o'er the deep, deep sea, When sweet mem'ries throng thy When, from visions of the night, When at midnight over all When the awful tempest's wrath From the wild and raging storm, 171 From the New Orleans Picayune. LITTLE JANE'S CHRISTMAS BOX. Incidents filled with deepest pathos, and occurrences to stir the soul with tenderest emotion, happen around us every day; yet seldom, very seldom, have we a pen commanding leisure enough to yield them a brief record. We remember being at the house of a friend on a certain Christmas day, when our eye, glancing through the window, fell upon an upholsterer's preparations for a funeral going on in front of a house immediately opposite. Our gentle hostess of the occasion, marked the action, and made us sit down to hear the following simple and affecting history of poor little Jane and her first Christmas Box. The little girl about to be buried upon the mind-merriest holliday in the year, was just approaching the anniversary of her seventh birthday, when some subtle disorder that had afflicted her from infancy, carried her off during the night that ushered in our last gay Christmas. She was a child of very sweet and attractive manners, and the neighbors had learned to know and love her. The incurable complaint which was consuming her, gave a placidity almost etherial, to her disposition, and her smile was a thing so mildly beautiful, that (if we may use a simile to assist this warm but imperfect description of our informant,) it must have been like the leaf of a lily shining in the embrace of a moonbeam. Often in the hush of night, The parents were poor, but dignified and retiring, and notwithstanding the profound interest little Jane awakened in the neighborhood, the bearing of the father, and the constant seclusion of the mother, clearly forbade any intrusive proffer of assistance. A few weeks since the child ceased its visits to the sidewalk, and was seen to sit no more upon the door step. Poor Jane was upon her death-bed. At the approach of the holidays, the father and mother (with that old hankering of hope which so eagerly clings for safety to a straw,) grew joyous with a bright change in their suffering daughter. She suddenly grew to laugh and converse with pleasant freedom, and the symptoms of internal pain ceased to cross her sweet face so often as before. Then the cheered mother would sit by the bedside,|| and talk to her girl of the merry holidays that were soon coming, and promising the poor child what she had never known before || -a handsome Christmas box. This promise, as it would seem, took great hold upon poor little dying Jane's fancy, for she still, from day to day, would question her mother about it, and desire to know what sort of a box it was to be? For an hour or two on the day preceding Christmas, she chatted with remarkable liveliness, telling her father and mother jocosely, that she meant to keep awake in the night, and watch Santa Claus when he came down the chimney with the box. But as evening came on, she faded into pale and sleepless stupor. The doting mother grew again uneasy, and with every innocent artifice, endeavored to keep the child's senses in action. She lifted little Jane upon the pillow, that she might see how the stocking was disposed in the chimney corner, telling her how she had promised to keep awake to see Santa Claus come down; but poor Jane smiled faintly, without speaking, a peculiar expression only crossing her countenance, by which the mother always understood a solicitation to be kissed. There she slept a sort of sleep from which her mother wished, yet feared to wake her-brightening up again at her father's return home in the evening. Somehow then the child's eye, or its changed voice, or some symptom not seen before, smote conviction of the coming catastrophe upon the father's heart, and mute with wretchedness, he sank upon his knees by the bedside. One loud, abrupt, involuntary and thrilling scream burst from the mother at this action, for it told her all that the father had no tongue to utter. She flew to her child, clutching it to her heart and lips, as though she would detain the breath heaven was taking away, and a deathly silence followed the woman's scream, broken only by the mountain-like laboring of the father's heart, and hysterical sobs bursting from the afflicted mother. In the opposite dwelling Fortune and Pleasure were smiling upon each other, and a gay assemblage of the chosen votaries of each, were joyfully greeting as they passed away the merry and laughing hours of Christmas Eve! How strangely opposites will sometimes jar during our progress through this chequered scene! How, still more strangely, does that jarring oft touch up the chords of gentle sympathy, which vibrate ever with melodious sound. The poor, bereaved mother's scream reached, and startled the company opposite, and our good hostess commanding her guests of the evening to remain in undisturbed festivity, went to visit the scene of affliction, for her heart too truly told her what alone could be the cause of such a desolate sound. || Little Jane lingered till nearly midnight, fading slowly, like one of those thin vapors sailing in the train of Cynthia, which pass away into ether, mocking admiration as with some beautiful illusion that you think you've seen, yet suddenly and strangely miss. The fair child yielded its breath with a smile, while the mother's tears were falling on its face, and the heavy throbs of the father's heart kept mournful accompaniment with the last pulsations of life in the breast of his child. So came the morning, and poor little Jane's Christmas box was-a coffin! Written for the Ladies' Garland. THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD. BY THOMAS L. HARRIS. Though the departed, in the cold tomb sleeping, Is the remembrance of the lov'd-the dead! All sweet, low sounds awaken their remembrance; 'Mid sighing leaves we hear their voice once more; The night-bird's plaint, made strangely sweet by dis tance The solemn sea-moan on the rocky shore- Our thoughts return to childhood's sunny morning, And charm away each spirit-clouding care. But now they dwell in homes of deathless glory, And tune their harps to sweetest notes of love,They to the spirit tell the joyous story Of a blessed meeting in that realm above! Though earth may wear the heavy garb of sadness, And friends prove false, and fairest hopes decay; Yet, shrined within us, in its solemn gladness, One blessed gem may never pass away! Borne on hope's ardent and untiring pinion, Above this realm the lonely spirit soars To that unclouded, ever bright dominion, Where the departed rest for evermore! "Utica, N. Y., 1842. From "The Gift," for 1843. BILLY SNUB, THE NEWSBOY; shoemaker in a quiet New England village. OR, THE RESULTS OF INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. BY SEBA SMITH. For a few years Bill Snub was the leading Indeed he took the lead from necessity, for he had no competitor; the field was all his own, and being allowed to have his own way, and fix his own prices, he managed to get a comfortable living. Being well to do in the world, and much given to whistling and singing, his shop gradually became the favorite resort of all the idlers in the village. Bill's importance was magnified in his own eyes by this gathering around him almost every evening, to say nothing of the rainy afternoons. Unconsciously to himself, he encouraged these lounging habits of his neighbors by administering to their little idle comforts. In one corner of his shop, was a broken chair for an extra seat, in another a square block of timber, left from the frame of the new schoolhouse, and in still another corner was a stout side of sole-leather, rolled up and snugly tied, which answered very well for a seat for three. A half-peck of apples, and a mug or two of cider, always at Bill's expense, frequently added to the alurements of the place, and Bill's songs, and Bill's jokes, no matter how little music or wit they contained, were always applauded. When the biographer has a subject of unusual magnitude and importance to deal with, it becomes him to lay out his work with circumspection, and preserve a careful method in the arrangement. It is not sufficient to commence with the father, nor even with the grandfather; propriety requires that the ancestral chain should be examined to the very topmost link. The ancestors of Billy Snub can be traced in a direct line only to the fourth generation. The great grandfather was a lawyer of thrift and respectability; a man of talents and influence. But this lawyer Snub, whose first name was William, had not the faculty or the talents to bring up his children to maintain the standing and dignity of their father. His son William was nothing more than a plain, respectable country farmer, who planted his potatoes, hoed his corn, and mowed his hay, and milked his cows, very much as other farmers do, without ever doing any thing to become distinguished in the history of his This state of things silently but gradually, times. He also was destined to see his pos- made sad encroachments upon Bill's habits of terity still in the descendant, for his son Wil-industry. His customers were put off from liam was a village shoemaker, who sat on his bench, and drew his thread, and hammered his lapstone from morning till night, the year in and year out, with the occasional variation of whistling while paring off a shoe, and sing-promised, but not touched. Many of his cusing a song of an evening to the loungers in his shop. The tendency in the Snub family, however, was still downwards; even the shoemaker was not at the bottom of the hill, for his son was Billy Snub, the newsboy. First generation, William Snub, Esquire. Second generation, Mr. William Snub, the fariner. Third generation, Bill Snub, the shoemaker. Fourth generation, Billy Snub, the newsboy. There is a tide in families, as well as "in the affairs of men." They rise and fall, though not as regularly, yet as surely, as the spring and neap tides of the ocean. And Billy Snub, after kicking and floundering about upon the flats at low water, has at last caught the flood, and there is no knowing to what height of fortune he may yet be carried. But the regular chain of history must not be anticipated; and in order to bring Billy fairly and with sufficient clearness before the public, it is necessary to dwell for a few moments, upon the history of Bill Snub, the shoemaker, and Sally Snub, his wife. day to day, and when Saturday night came, a bushel basket full of boots and shoes remained in his shop waiting repairs, to say nothing of sundry new ones that had been tomers had to stay at home on the Sabbath, or go to meeting barefoot. The result of all this was, that an interloper soon came into the place, and opened a shop directly opposite to that of Bill. The way was already open for him for a good run of business. Bill's customers, exasperated at their numerous disappointments, discarded him at once, and flocked to the new comer. In a week's time, Bill had nothing to do. He might be seen standing in his shop door, or with his head out of the window, hour after hour, watching his old customers as they entered the shop of his rival. He would go home to his meals in ill-humor, and scold his wife for his bad luck. And if little Billy, then six years old, came round him with his accustomed prattle and play, he was pretty sure to be silenced with a smart box on the ear. Things grew worse and worse with him, and in a few months want was not only staring him in the face, but had actually seized him with such a firm grip as to bring him to a full stand. Something must be done; Bill was uncomfortable. Whistling or singing to the bare walls of his shop, produced an echo that chill ed and annoyed him exceedingly. Food and clothing began to be among the missing, and he soon discovered that walking the streets did but little towards replenishing his wardrobe; nor would scolding or even beating his wife supply his table. At last, throwing the whole blame upon the place and the poeple where he lived, he resolved at once to pull up stakes and be off. "And where are you going, Bill?" asked his wife, wiping the tears from her eyes, as she saw her husband commence the work of packing up. "It's none of your business, Sall," said the husband, gruffly. "But I'm going where there's work enough for all creation; where there's more folks to mend shoes for than you can shake a stick at." 66 66 Well, where is it, Bill? do tell us;" said Sally, in an anxious tone. If it is only where we can get victuals to eat, and clothes to wear, I shall be thankful." “Well, then,” said Bill, “I'm going to the biggest city in the United States, where there's work enough all weathers." "Well, that's Boston," said Sally. "No, 'taint Boston," said Bill; "it's a place as big as three Bostons. It's New York: I'm going right into the middle of New York; so pack up your duds about the quickest; for I ain't going to stop for nobody." And sure enough, a few mornings after this, among the deck passengers of one of the steamers that arrived at New York, was no less a personage than Bill Snub, the shoemaker, with his wife Sally and his son Billy. The group landed, and stared at every object they met, with a wild and wondering expression, that seemed to indicate pretty clearly that they were not accustomed to sights and scenes like those around them. Indeed, they had never before been in a large town, and hardly out of their quiet country village. Each bore a bundle, containing the whole. amount of their goods and chattels, which had been reduced to a few articles of wearing apparel, a box or two of eatables, which they|| had taken for their journey, and a few tools of his trade, which Bill had had the foresight to preserve, in order to begin the world anew. Bewildered by the noise and bustle, and crowds of people on every side, they knew not which way to turn or what to do. They knew not a person nor a street in the city, and had no very definite object in view. Instinctively following the principal current of passengers that landed from the boat, they soon found themselves in Broadway. Here, as a small stream blends with a large one into which it flows, their company was pre sently merged and lost in the general throng of that great thoroughfare. They gradually lost sight of the familiar faces they had seen on board the boat, and when the last one disappeared, and they could no longer discover in the vast multitude hurrying to and fro, up and down the street, a single individual they had ever seen before, a sense of solitude and home-sickness came over them, that was almost overpowering. They stopped short on the side-walk, and Bill looked in his wife's face, and his wife looked in his, and little Billy stood between them, and looked up in the faces of both. "What are you going to do?" asked Sally. 66 Going to do?" replied Bill; "I'm going to hire out; or else hire a shop and work on my own hook." Just at that moment a gentleman brushed past his elbow, and Bill hailed him.. "I say, mister, you don't know of nobody that wants to hire a shoemaker, do ye?" The gentleman turned and glanced at him a moment, and then hurried on without saying a word. 66 I should think he might have manners enough to answer a civil question," muttered Bill to himself, as he shouldered his bag and moved on up the street. Presently they passed a large shoe shore. "Ah, here's the place!" said Bill; "we've found it at last. O, Sall, did you ever see such an all-fired sight of shoes? Lay down your bundle, and stop here to the door, while I go in and make a bargain for work." So in Bill went, and addressed himself to one of the clerks. "I say, mister, you've got sich an everlastin' lot of shoes here, I guess may be you'd like to hire a good shoemaker; and if you do, I'm the boy for you." The clerk laughed, and told him he must ask the boss about that. "Ask the what?" said Bill. "Ask the boss," said the clerk, who began to relish the conversation. "I shan't do no sich thing," said Bill; "I did'nt come to New York to talk with bossy calves nor pigs; and if you are a calf, I don't want any more to say to you; but if you want to hire a good shoemaker, I tell you I'm the chap for you." Here the proprietor of the store, seeing the clerks gathering round Bill, to the neglect of their customers, came forward and told him he did not wish to hire any workmen, and he had better go along. "But I'll work cheap," said Bill, “and I'm a first-rate workman. Here's a pair of shoes on my feet I've worn for four months, and they han't ripped a stitch yet." "But I don't want to hire," said the man "You need'nt be so touchy," said Bill; "I guess I've seen as good folks as you are, before to-day. Come now, what'll you give me a month ?" "I'll give you what you won't want," said the man, "if you are not out of this store in one minute." As he said this, he approached Bill with such a menacing appearance, that the shoemaker thought it time to retreat, and hastened out of the door. As he reached the sidewalk, he turned round and hailed the man of the store again. "I say mister, haven't you got a shoemaker's shop you'll let to me?" The man said he had a good room for that purpose. 66 Well, what do you ask a year for it?" said Bill. "Three hundred dollars, with good security," replied the shopman. Three hundred dollars! My gracious! Come now, none of your jokes. Tell us how much you ask for it, 'cause I want to hire." "I tell you I ask three hundred dollars," replied the man; "but it's of no use for you to talk about it; you can't give the security." "O, you go to grass," said Bill; "I don't want none of your jokes. I've hired as good a shop as ever a man waxed a thread in, for fifteen dollars a year; and if you are a mind to let me have your'n for the same, I'll go and look at it." The man laughed in his face, and turned away to wait upon his customers; and a little waggish boy, who had been standing by and listening to the conversation, looked up askance at Bill, and exclaimed," Ain't ye green ?" hire a shoemaker, or that had a shoemaker's shop to let. Most of them would hurry by him without any further notice than a hasty glance; others would laugh, and some would stop, and ask a few questions, or crack a few heartless jokes, and then turn away. After awhile a throng of boys had gathered around him, and by various annoyances rendered his position so uncomfortable, that he was glad to escape, and shouldering his baggage, he and his group wandered on with heavy hearts up the street. Most of the day passed in this way without any profitable result, and as night approached they grew weary and desponding. They had no money left to provide themselves with a home for the night, though they had provision enough for a meal or two remaining in their wallets. Bill had found it utterly impossible to make any impression upon any one he had met in the city, except so far as to be laughed at. He could get no one's ear to listen to his story, and he could see no prospect of employment. Sally had several times suggested that this great road which they had been up and down so much-for they had been almost the whole length of Broadway two or three times-was not exactly the best road for them to go in, and she did'nt think but what they might be likely to do better to go into one of the smaller roads, where the folks did'nt look so grand. And, though Bill had been of a different opinion through the day, he now began to think that Sally might streets that seemed to descend into a sort of be right. Looking down one of the cross valley, quite a different country appeared to open to them. They could see old decayeddirty sidewalks; they could see half-naked looking houses, with broken windows and children, running about and playing in the street; they could see bareheaded women and ragged men lounging about the doors, and numerous swine rooting in the gutters. The prospect was too inviting to be resisted; they felt at once that there they should find sympathy, and hastened down the street. Poor Bill began to think he had got among Arriving in the midst of this land of proa strange set of people, and, shouldering his mise, they deliberately laid down their packs bag, he marched up Broadway, with his wife upon the sidewalk, and seating themselves and Billy at his heels, till he came to the upon the steps of an old wooden house, felt Astor House. Here he made a halt, for it as if they had at last found a place of rest. looked to him like a sort of place for head- They opened their wallets, and began to parquarters. The building was so imposing in take of a little refreshment. Heads were out its appearance, and so many people were go- of a hundred windows in the neighborhood ing in and coming out, and every thing around gazing at them. Children stopped short in was so brisk and busy, he thought surely it the midst of their running, and gathered must be just the place to look for business. around them; and leisurely, one after anoSo laying down their baggage, he and Sally ther, a stout woman or a sturdy loafer drew and Billy quietly took a seat on the broad nigh and entered into conversation. As Bill granite steps. He soon began to ply his in-related his simple story, a universal sympaquiries to all sorts of people, asking if they thy was at once awakened in the hearts of all could tell him of any body that wanted to the hearers. They all declared he should |