MUSTAPHA'S VACATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 235, 6 October 1886, Page 3

MUSTAPHA'S VACATION.

How he Sought a Place of Best and

Found it Not,

Mow, in the sixth month, in the reign of the good caliph, it was bo that Mustapha said: "I am wearied with much work: thought, care and worry have worn me out: I need ropoae, for the hand of exhaustion is upon me and death now lieth at the door."

And he called his physician, who felt his pulse and looked upon his tongue and said:

" Twodollahs !" (For this was the oath by which all physicians swore.) "Of a verity thou must have rest. Flee unto the valley of quiet and close thine eyes in dreamful rest; hold back thy brain from .bought and thy hand from lahour, or you will be a candidate for the asylum in threo weeks."

And he heard him and went out and put the business in the hands of the. clerk and went away to rest in tho valley of quiet. And ho wont to his Uncle Ben's, whom he had not seen for, lo ! those fourteen years. Now, his uncle Ben waa a farmer, and abode in the valley of rest, and the mountains of repose rose around him. And he was rich and well-favoured and strong as an ox and healthy as an onion crop. Ofttimes he had boasted unto his neighbours that there was not a lazy bone in his body, and he swore that he hated a lazy man.

And Mustapha wist not that it was so. But wh 3n he reached his Uncle Ben's thoy received him with great joy and placed before him a supper of homely viands, well cooked and piled up on his plate liko the wreck of a box car, and when ho could not eat it all they laughed him to Ecorn. And aftor supper they sat up with him and talked with hitn about relatives whereof he had novor ir. all his life so much as heard. And he a _swored thoir questions at random and Hod unto them, professing to know Uncle Ezra and Aunt Bethesda, and once he said ho had a letter from Undo George last week. Now they all knew Uncle George was shot in a neighbor's sheep .pen three years ago, but Mustapha wist not that it was so, and he was sieepy, and only talked to fill up the time. And then tbey talked politics to him, and he hated politics. So about 1 o'clock in the morning they sent him to bed. Now, the spare room wherein ho slept was right under the roof, and there were ears and bundles of ears of seed corn hung from the rafters, and he bunged his eyes with tho same, and he hooked his chin in festoons of dried apples, and shook dried herbs and seeds down his back as he walked along, for it was dark. And when he sat up in bed in the night he ran a scythe into hia ear

And it was that the boys slept with him. for the bed was wide. And they were restless and slumbered crosswise and kicked so that Mustapha slept not a wink that night, neither closed he his eyes. And about the fourth hour after midnight his Uncle Ben emote him on the back and spake unto him, saying : " Awake, arise, rustle out of thia and wash your face ; for the liver and bacon is fried and the breakfast waiteth. You will find the well down at the other end of the cow lot. Take a towel with you." When they had eaten Uncle Ben spake unto him, saying: "Come, let us stroll around the farm." And they walked about eleven miles And his Uncle Ben sat hira upon a waggon and taught him how to load hay. Then they drove into the barn and they taught him to unload it. Then they girded up their loins and walked about four miles, even unto the foreßt, aud his Uncle Ben taught him how to chop wood, and they walked back to supper. And thus were the morning and evening of the first day, and Muetapha wished that he were dead.

And after supper his Uncle Ben spake once more and said, "Come, let U8 have some fun." And so they hooked up a team and drove nine miles down to Belcher's branch, where was a hop. And they danced until the second hour in the morn-

ing, ~ , When the next day was come, which wasn't long, for already the night was far spent, his Uncle Ben took him out and taught him how to make rail fence. And that night thore was a wedding, and they danced and made merry and drank and ate, and when they went to bed at 3 o'clock Mustapha prayed that death might come to him before breakfast. But breakfast had an early start and got there first. And his Uncle Ben took him down to the creek and tahght him how to wash and shear sheep. And when the evening was come they went to spelling school, and they got home at the first hour after midnight, and Uncle Ben marvelled that it was so early. And he lighted his pipe and sat up for an hour and told Mustapha all about the forty he boughb last spring of old Mosey Stringer, to finish out that north half, and about the new colt that was foaled last spring. And when Mustapha went to bed that morning he bethought him of a dose of etrychnine he had with him, and he said his prayers wearily and he took it. But the youngest boy was restless that night, and kicked all the poison out of him iL less than ten seconds.

And in the morning while it was yet light they ate breakfast. And his uncle then took him out and taught him how to dig a ditch. Aud when eveniog was come there was a revival meeting at Ebenezer Methodist Church, and they all went. And thero wero three regular preachers and two e_*hortora and a Baptist evangelist And when midnight was come they went home, and sat up and talked over the meeting until it was bedtime.

Now when Mustapha was at home he left his desk at the fifth hour in the afternoon, and he went to bed at the third hour after aunset, and he arose not until the sun was high in the heavens. So the next day when his Uncle Ben would take him out into the field, and to show him how to make a post-and-rail fence, Mustapha would swear at him, and smote him with an axe-helve, and fled and got himself home. And Mustapha sent for his physician and cursed him. And he said he was tired to death, and he turned his face to the wall and died. So Mustapha was gathered to his fathers. And his physicians'and friends mourned and said :

•• Alas !he did not rest soon enough. He tarried at his desk too long." But hist Uncle Ben, who came in to attend tho funeral, and had to do all his weeping out of one eye, bacauße the other was black half way down to his chin, said it was a pity, but Mustapha was too awfully lazy to live, and had no get-up about him.

But Mustapha wist not what they said, because he was dead. So they divided his property among them and said if be wanted a tombstone he might have attended to it himself while he was yet olive, because they had no time.—Burdette in " Brooklyn Eagle." - _