The Akron Offering by Jon Miller

Author:Jon Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Akron Press

Would’st thou from sorrow find a sweet relief?

Or is thy heart oppressed with woes untold?

Balm would’st thou gather for corroding grief?

Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold.

’Tis when the rose is wrapped in many a fold

Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there

Its life and beauty; and when, all unrolled,

Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair,

Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air.

C. Wilcox.26

For the Offering.

The Little Coal-Heaver.27

By Jenny.

Chapter II.

The day was drawing to a close. The wind which had been blowing from the south-east, had shifted round to the north and gave promise of a bitter cold night.

Mrs. Bates sat in her own room, waiting for her protégé to finish his supper, hoping that by the time this was accomplished he would be sober enough to converse, intelligibly. She was as yet, ignorant of the distance he lived from town, so she had him called in to receive his pay, when the following dialogue ensued.

Mrs. B. How far do you live from town Mr. Higgins?

Hig. About two miles madam, I live at the upper diggins, my cabin stands on the right side of the hill.

Mrs. B. I think I heard you saying something of your wife’s illness, has she been a long while sick and what is the nature of her disease?

Hig. Well madam, I should think she was sick, she’s been ’flicted these four years—she catched a violent cold crossin the mountains comin to this state and she haint seen a well day since.

Mrs. B. I hope your neighbors are kind to her and visit her often. I saw six or seven cabins at the upper banks last summer. You have neighbors have you not?

Hig. Neighbors madam! a plenty on em sich as they are—I don’t want to say nothin about nobody; but they are a poor drunken set, cusin, swearin and fighten all the time. I don’t want any sich cattle to come there to disturb my wife, and teach my children their bad tricks, no,—nobody comes to see her—my biggest gal does all that is done for her Mother, and that aint much for the poor thing haint got anything to do with.

Mrs. B. Does she suffer very acute pain so as to be unable to walk about and attend to her family?

Hig. Lord bless you madam, she can’t walk a step, and she’s lost the use of her right arm and then the way she screams when we try to turn her in bed, or even when we walk across the floor is terrifyin. It seems strange that hardly anybody cares for poor people, in this country—you’re the only Lady that ever spoke a kind word to me since I left “Old Virginny.”

Mrs. B. It is now getting late and is high time for you to be at home with your family; I have a few words of advice to give you which I hope you will take kindly as it is meant for your good.

Hig. Certainly madam, for I couldn’t

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