CHARLOTTE MESSENGER.
VOL. I. NO. 39.
THE OLD COBBLES.
i remember my surprise when the
•plaint little sign lirst attracted my at
tention. I stopped to look at it more
attentively:
“ I'll make your shoe
As eend as New
& better to
J. Itotters, Cobbler.”
, read it once, twice, three times, till it
began to chase itself around in my
head, like a cat after her own tail. I
was fascinated by its faultless rhyme,
bv tiie lawless abandon of its capitals.
I think it soon would have set itself
into music in my whirling little brain,
if a voice had not cried out;
" Wal, little girl, how do you like my
new sign ? Don’t you call that first
class poetry?”
“ V es, it’s very nice poetry,” I an
swered. And then I went on boldly:
■“ llut I see a word in it that isn’t
spelled right.”
‘ Not spelled right? How’s that?
1 shall have to hobble out and take a
look at it. You’re a pretty noticin’
little critter. Ain’t yer ?”
1 hinted that this sort of “too” was
usually spelled with two o’s; but Mr.
lingers looke 1 bard at the word over
his spectacles, and did not seem to
think favorably of the change.
•• I’ll tell ye what,” said he, finally.
“I've got away, and no spellin’ about
it. What’s spellin’ as long as folks
catch ver idee ? The idee is what ver
■au’t git along without.”
Saving which, Mr. lingers took his
list to the objectionable “ to” and wrote
triumphantly in its place a huge fig
ure 2.
I felt baffled and helpless, and went
home with a vague sense that I had
left Mr. lingers’ sign much worse than
1 had found it It still pursued me,
however, and at dinner I said sud
denly:
“ Mamma, don’t you want my shoe
ai good as new, and better too?”
“ llless me!” said my grandmother,
“what ails the <hihl® .She isn’t be
ginning so early „■> be a poet, is she ?”
“Uh, no,” cried my father. “I
gupss she’s been reading old John
lingers’ sign. Wife, it is a curiosity.
Von must go by there. We must send
him down some old shoes. You know
he broke his leg last winter and lie’s
trying to work again. We must give
him a lift.”
So it was that next morning I found
myself again before the distracting
sign, this time with a large bundle of
old shoes in my arms. I lifted the
latch and stepped into the little shop.
I declare for’t, if here ain't a rush
of business,” said Mr. Rogers, as he
opened my bundle. “One pair of eo]>-
per-toes. ’ Them your little brother’s?
i ongress, with the ’larstic give out.
11iiess ‘.hat's yer grandmother's. And
here's some o’ yer pa’s boots, with a
nice, harnsome hole in it.”
•• And I’d like to buy some shoe
strings, too,” I put in. feeling myself
a patron of considerable importance.
“ Now, them copper-toes wouldn’t
take more’n half an hour. Can’t you
sit down and wait? I ain't sueli a
great talker, but I like somebody to
speak once in a while. There’s the
cat. I talk to her. She will look very
knowing; but the minute my back’s
turned she’s fast aseep. That ain't
flatterin’, yer see, and I stop.”
I sat down, and while I listened
used my eyes as well. The sunlight
fought its way through the dusty
window-frames, and diffused itself
impartially over the floor, with its
wide, dirt-filled cracks. The decora
tion of these walls was of a humble
order, although by no means uninter
esting. In the first place, there wore
huge auction-bills, in every stage of
yellowness and dirt. My grandmother
kept an obituary scrapbook; hut, as I
afterward found out, it was Mr.
lingers’ practice to cherish the auction
bills of his departed friends. Amos
Hidden had peacefully slept with his
fathers for thirteen years or more, but
in J. Rogers’ shop it was still pro
claimed, in giant type, that he wished
to sell “ten milch cows and six healthy
yearlings.”
Nor was this all. Ten years before
a misguided showman had come to
our little town, and had solemnly re
treated the next day, with more ex
perience than profits ; hut his advent
still lived in the handbills on Mr.
Rogers* walls. Rebind the old man,
as he patiently bent over his work, an
interesting familv of lions were sport
ing ; while on the door were set forth,
in vivid pictures, the accomplishments
■of “The Fairy of the Ring,” a young
woman in very scanty petticoats. The
ceiling, too, had its share of decora
tion. From It hung, among festoons
or cobwebs, a broken bird-cage : a bat
hed Chinese lantern, whose light had
CHARLOTTE, MECKLENBURG CO., N. C„ MARCH 31, 1883.
long since gone out; odd boots, which I
had parted with their mates ; baskets
with no bottoms, and numberless
straps, chains and bits of rope that
had long ago outlived their usefulness.
But Mr. Rogers’ work-bench bas- j
lies all enumeration. It was covered j
with a deposit of from six to ten
inches in depth, from whose lower
stratum Mr. Rogers would, from time,
bring up an awl ora bit of wax.
it was the old cobbler himself on
whom my eyes at last rested. In his
most upright days he could not have
been a large man; but now the years
had settled heavily upon him, and he
had lost several inches of his youthful
height. His face was framed with a
thin white fringe of beard, while
cheek and chin were rough with a
granite-colored stubble. There were
fine, netted wrinkles, but no deep fur
rows, in the old man’s face, and on
each cheek a wintry bloom still lin
gered. Ilis voice had the roughness
of a nutmeg-grater, but now and then
glanced off from its usual key and end
ed in a sort of chirp.
“You never come to see me before,
did you? I am the J. Rogers out
there on the sign. You’ve heard of
John Rogers that was burnt at the
stake? Well, I’m another John Rog
ers—not that one. I warn’t never
quite so bad off as that. So you like
my shop, eh? I’ve got everything
handy, yer see. I haven’t always
been so well off as this,” lie went on
in a tremulous chirp. “ When my.
wife was alive—. My wife was a fine
woman, liarnsum and pretty high-'
stepping when I married her, but
trouble lining her down; she never
took kindly to it. Her folks called me
shiftless. I dunno; if shiftless means
working hard and getting little ’spose
I was. I warn’t one of the kind ter
worry, and she was. Eight children
there were, and every one that come
she was sorry it come; and then,
when one after another they died, all
hut one, that was what killed tier at
last. They was my children, too, and
—well, I—it’s given me something to
look forward to, seeing ’em up there,
yer see ; but my wife, she wasn’t right
exactly in her mind, it’s my belief,
after our troubles come. I dunno’s
anybody was to blame for’em. There’s
more trouble in this worl I than I’m
able to account for, I’m free ter admit.
My wife, she took to iier bed two
years before she died ; and then I had
to learn a new trade or two beside
shoemaking. I was hired gal and
most everything else. I made a pretty
bad mess of it. I don’t deny it. I’oor
Jim—he’sour hoy—run off; he couldn’t
stand it. She died after awhile. She
was one of the Budsons. A harnsom
set of gals they were. It was a heavy
day for me when I buried her in her
grave. I’ve been alone since, but I’ve
had a great many mercies.”
“ I thought you broke your leg last
winter, Mr. Rogers,” I said.
“So I did, but, on the whole, I
rather enjoyed it. I dunno when I
ever lived so high or had so many
visits from my friends.”
And so Mr. Rogers talked on, look
ing sharply up at ine now and then, as
if to assure himself that I was a bet
ter listener than the cat.
Two days after I went for the rest
of the shoes, and Mr. Rogers seemed
so glad to see me that I was again
flattered into staying.
“ Come, now, if you’ll set down and
stay awhile, I’ll tell yer a story. Per
haps you’d like to know how I come
by them lions? Wal, I’ll tell yer,
child, how ’twas.”
Witha child’s greed of stories, I was
only too eager to listen.
“ I told him his show’ll find it pretty
poor pickin's in this town,” said Mr.
Rogers, in conclusion. “ I’d done its
cobbling for twenty years and more.
But he wasn’t for listening to me. and
so they went off, lie and his menagerie,
all a-growling together.”
Somehow, it app -ars that after all,
Mr. Rogers was the hero of this story;
and again it seemed that Mr. Rogers
had played a prominent part in the de
cline and fall of Amos Belden’s for
tlines;ami again that Jonathan \V ilder
would have done much better to listen
to Mr. Rogers’ advice, and thus have
averted ruin and consequent auction
bills. It was a very artless egotism
not bard to account for. For years the
old man had lived alone, his own chief
counselor and friend. 1 do not won
der that he grew a little larger in hi*
own eyes than in other men’s; that his
imagination, having nothing else to
do, built up ttie pa*t till his memory
held fiction asdear as fact. lam quite
ready to forgive him his retrospective
castle-building, though I happened to
be its credulous victim.
Then there were marvelous tales of
“my ion Jim’s" adventures in that
far-off wonderland, “ Out Went.” I
believe three scanty letters furnished
these romances their foundation of
fact; but I asked no questions, and be
lieved with as honest a faith in the
gold-paved streets of San Francisco as
in those of the New Jerusalem.
“He was a good boy, Jim was,’’ the
old man would say. “ I never thought
hard of him for goin’ off. If he only
comes back to bury me, that’s all I ask.
He’ll be coming back one of these
days, rich and harnsome, I hain’t a
doubt. I shouldn’t wonder if he’d be
looking round for a wife. Let’s see
how old are you ? I shouldn’t wonder
if you was just about right for him by
that time. You’d make a putty little
pair.”
Though Time had stood as still with
Jim as liis father seemed to think, the
idea of my marrying him would have
lost none of its uncomfortable gro
tesqueness.
“ Don’t, Mr. Rogers,” I said.
“Bashful, are you,” he answered,
trying to look roguish. “ Don’t you be
for not getting merried, though, like
the Miss Bucklands, and the Jewbury
girls, and the Bassett girls, and all the
rest. There’s too many on ’em; too
many on ’em. I used to tell my wife
that I was better’n nothin’ anyway.
It’s kind of shabby in the men to go
off and leave the women die off here
up-country all alone. I ain’t afraid
but Jim’ll find somebody easy enough.”
“ Oh, yes I” I said; vir I was afraid
I had hurt the old man’s feelings.
“ I’m sure lie must be very nice.”
One accomplishment of Mr. Rogers
I shall never forget. He not only told
me stories as lie worked, but lie pro
fessed to be able to read them from
his hands, whicn he held before him
like the open pages of a book.
“See! You can look at ’em,” he
would say. “ There’s nothing hid in
’em. No cheating about it. Hard
and tough. Don’t look much like a
book, do they? But just hear me
read to you out of ’em.”
I was completely mystified, especial
ly when the reader slopped to spell
out a word, and when he held his
hard hands up to the light, and com
plained that it was rather fine print
for such old eyes; but still the story
went on without a break, and, in spite
of myself, I was brought to the belief
that Mr. Rogers possessed some super
natural reading powers, perhaps akin
to the mystery of my parsing lesson,
which told of “ sermons in stones and
books in the running brooks.”
The summer and fall went by, and
the winter came, with frolics without
number; but alas! to the poor and old
it brought only a chill that crept into
tlieir bones and took up its abode
there. I’oor old John Rogers! I lifted
his latch one day but the awl lay idle
on the bench. It was only the rheu
matism that had taken a mean advan
tage of the infirm knee; but week after
week he lay on his bed and the dust
gathered thicker in the little shop.
The neighbors were kind; but the best
people find a sameness in the constant
repetition of good deeds, and by de
grees it grew plain that the old man’s
friends would feel a sense of selief if
he got well. It was about this time
that my grandmother declared witli a
sigh that she had great respect for Mr.
Rogers.
“ He’s borne up under affliction like
a man; but ratlier shiftless—rather
shiftless. I don’t know how to recon
cile his virtui s with the dirt and dis
order lie lives in. I don’t wonder his
wife took to her b d.”
“ They say she was a perfect shrew,”
said my mother, placidly threading her
needle. “ Half crazy—so I’ve heard.
Mr. Appleton thinks there’s no use in
Mr. Rogers trying to stay by himself
this winter. He’d much better go to
the poorliouse and lie taken'good care
of. Mrs. Simons, the woman over his
shop, says he’s hardly a cent left, and
she can’t lie expected to provide for
him.' I suppose the thought of it will
be ratlier hard for him, at first, but
he’ll be much better off. Lucy, dear,
won’t you hand me my scissors ?”
I gave my mother her scissors, but
felt that by the act I became a con
spirator in this plot for the final
degradation of my poor old friend. I
fat by his bed next day, when who
should appear at the door but my
father. 1 felt that the plot was thick
ening.
“ Well, how are you, Mr. Rogers ?”
said my father in his hearty voice.
“ Are you feeling jfretty smart to
day?”
“ Yes, I’m pretty smart, thank ye. I
liain’t got them boots o’ yourn quite
ready yet, though. I’ll try and take
hold of ’em to-morrow. I’m sorry you
had the trouble of coming after ’em
for nothing. I can send ’em by your j
little gaL I dunno’s you know what
a good little gal she is to come and see
me.”
“ I like to come,” I said.
My father seemed in no hurry to go,
and said, at length:
“Rather lonely here by yourself,
isn't it, Mr. Rogers?”
“ Well, I dunno's I’ve got much to
complain of. Mrs. Simons, upstairs,
looks after things, and I tell her to
spend the money in the black teapot.
There's other folks worse off.”
My father looked puzzled.
“ I declare, Mr. Rogers, you’ve
known what trouble was. haven't you ?
See! How many years was your wife j
laid up? And you’ve lost about all
your cnildren, and now here you are j
yourself.”
“ Yes, yes,” said the old man. “But
those ain’t the sort of things I try to
.let my mind dwell on while I'm a-lay
ing here. I try to count up my mer
cies.”
My father looked puzzled.
“ Well, now, Mr. Rogers, I think,
and my wife things that you ought to
go somewhere else.”
“ I ain’t got nowhere else to go, sir.
I’m all alone in the world. It’s true,
what you say.”
“But, Mr. Rogers, to lie plain, you
know I’m one of the selectmen, and I’d
see that the town took care of you—•
better care than Mrs. Simons does.”
“I dunno's I quite catch your mean
ing. sir. Does anybody find fault witli
Mrs. Simons?”
“No, no. I don’t mean that. I
mean we think you’d better go down
to Mr. Miles’ to spend the winter. He
keeps the town farm, you know.”
“You mean to the poorhouse, sir?
I warn’t very bright ter see.”
The old man turned his faded eyes
imploringly up to my father’s face.
“ Well, yes, that’s what they call it,
though I must say I never quite liked
the name.”
The old cobbler’s face seemed to
grow white and aged before our very
eyes. With the instinct decently to
hide his trouble, he drew up the old
bedquilt with a tremulous hand and
turned his face to the wall.
“I dunno but I’ve asked too much,’
he said, in a broken • voice. “ I’ve sort
o' hung onto the idee that I should die
before I come ter that.”
“Lucy,” said my father, “didn’t 1
hear somebody in the shop ? Go and
see.”
Two strangers had just entered the
door—a tall young man dressed in a
suit of plaid, and accompanied by a
pleasant-faced young woman in a white
bonnet.
“ Mr. Rogers is sick,” I said. “He
can’t mend shoes now.”
“ Sick, did you say he wai? Where
is he?”
“ He’s in there. I don’t believe he
wants anybody to come in.”
The young man gave me a queer
look.
“ I guess you don’t know who I am.
I guess he’ll be willing to see me.”
By this time he stood in the door be
tween the two rooms. M.r. Rogers’
face was turned away and nfy father
was looking intently into the little
back yard. The stranger glanced un
easily about and said not a word. I
am sure it must have been a relief to
him, as well as to me, when at last my
father turned suddenly round and
said;
“ Why, who’s this?”
“ It’s' somebody come to see Mr.
Rogers,” I answered, faintly.
“ Don’t you know me? Don’t yon
know me, father?” the stranger burst
out. “It’s me. It’s Jim come hack.
And out there’s my wife. Come home
to yon.”
I laugh now to think of the absurd
sense of relief this last revelation
caused me.
“Jimmy! Come home!” the old
man murmured, in a dazed, scared
way. “ I ain’t out of my head. I’m
awaW. I know what you're going
to do with me. You're going to take
me to the poorhouse.”
“ Take you to the poorhouse, father?
What are you talking about? You're
going to my house. You are going to
live in style. No poorhouse about
that. Ain’t you glad to see me ? Say,
Marne, come in here and see my poor
old dad I”
j There was a moment’s silence,
j Slowly, very slowly, the old man un
derstood; slowly he raised himself in
lied, and, holding up his trembling
hand, said, solemnly;
“ God lie praised !”
There are forty thfousand square
, miles of almost unbroken forests in
North Carolina, comprising pine, chest
nut, oak, maple, beech and hickory
timber in their growth.
Horse cars run between El Paso,
Texas, and Paso del Norte, Mexico.
V. C. SMITH. PnblisUer.
GLOOM TO GLEAM.
There’s a ripple of rhymo
On the river of time,
A.s it floats thro’ the years and the a23j.
And a sunny gleam
Or a golden dream
"Jn the saddest of life’s sad pago3»
There’s a sad refrain
To the sweetest strain,
The longest day soon closes,
And so we’ll take,
For their sweot sake,
The thorns ’mid life’s sweet rosea.
-The daylight fades
In deepest shades,
And life has many phases;
The falling dew
And sunbeams, too,
Make buttercups and daisies.
—Eliza M. Sherman,
HUMOROUS*
IJell(e) boys—Mashers.
Always going to balls—Babies.
The head man—The phrenologist.
“ Yes, sir,” said the wood dealer, “ I
prefer to sell wood to men who do their
own sawing. You can’t convince a
man who has worked all day at a wood
pile that there isn’t a full cord of it.”
—Boston Pott.
The eagle feels best soaring hun
dreds of feet above the earth, but tlio
minute you get a man on a platform
ton Inches high his knees weaken, his
face looks like the shell of a boiled
crab, and be can't remember a word
beyond “ fellow-citizens.”—Philadel
phia Bulletin.
“I wonder what is the matter with
Mr. Brown,” said the' landlady ; “he
seems to he very angry about some
thing. Why, you should have seen
him grinding his teeth just now iD the
hall.” “Perhaps,” suggested Fogg,
“ he is only getting them in order before
tackling one of your beefsteaks.” The
landlady smiled, but there was murder
in her heart.— Boston Transcript.
A woman recently applied for State
aid, and the blank was produced and
the usual questions asked. She an
swered them freely until it came to,
“Your age?” “Have I got to tell
that?” she asked. “The blank re
quires it, ma’am.” was the reply.
“ Well, then,” she said, “ I don’t want
any State aid.” And she flounced out
of the ortice in high dudgeon.— Boston
Transcript.
Statistics of a quail-hunt in Georgia,
gathered by the Atlanta Constitution:
The Marietta and North Georgia road
is the great route for quail-hunters.
The other day there were #2,01)0 worth
of dogs (cash valuation) in the bag
gage car on that road, attended' by
$15,000 worth of negroes (old valua
tion. ) In the'eoach were $1,400 worth
of guns and fifty dollars worth of
hunters. On the return trip they had
five dollars and eighty cents worth of
birds, and they ate a tweuty-dollar
lunclL
Tin. HOME DOCTOR.
Cure for Smallpox and Scar
let Fever. —Sulphate of zinc, one
grain; foxglove (digitalis), one grain;
half a teaspoonful of sugar; mix with
two tablesjsxmfuls of water; when
thoroughly mixed suld four ounces of
water. Take a talilespoonful every
hour. Either disease will disappear
in twelve hours. For a child smaller
doses, according to age. It is harm
less if taken by a well person.
Cure (for Corns.— The Scientific
American, a reliable paper, gives the
following recipe as a sure cure for
corns. As the remedy is very simple,
if any of our readers are afflicted with
corns, it would probably be well for,
them to give it a trial; Take one
fourth cup strong vinegar; crumble
into it some- ’oread. Let it stand half
an hour, or until it softens into a good
poultice. Then apply on retiring at
night. In the morning the sorenese
will be gone, and the corn can be
picked out. If the corn is a very ob
stinate one it may require two or more
applications to effect a cure.
Übeof Narcotics. -The London Lan
cet says: “It is high time that attention
were directed to the subject of nar
cotics generally, and the use of chloral
and bromide of potassium in particu
lar. Incalculable injury isbeingdoße,
and public opinion is being grievously
misled by the tolerance given to. the
use of ‘sleeping, draughts,’ falsely so
■ ailed. In regard to this matter and
that of the reckless use of hypodermio
I injections of morphia, the profession
should seek to form a deliberate judg
i meat, and gravely deliver itself. At
! he present moment we are under a
I eavy responsibility, which it is Ml*
1 <lenr and vain to disown.”