SOMETHING CURIOUS HAPPENED.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3561, 7 December 1882, Page 4

SOMETHING CURIOUS HAPPENED.

A boy ten years old pulling a heavy cart loaded with pieces of board and lath taken from some demolished structure —an everyday sight in all our cities. Tired and exhausted, he halted under a shade-tree. His feet were bruised and sore, his clothes in rags, his face pinched and looking years older than it should. What must be the thoughts of sucli a child as he looks out upon the world—the fine houses, the rich dresses, the rolling carriages—the happy faces of those who have never known what if; was to be poor ? Does it harden the heart and make it wicked, or does it bring a feeling of loneliness and wretchedness —a wondering if the rich man's Heaven is not so far from the poor man's Heaven that he will never catch sight of their pinched faces ?

The boy lay down on the grass, and in five minutes was fast asleep. His bare feet just touched the kerbstone, and the old hat fell from his head and rolled to the walk. In the shadow of the tree his face told a story that every passer-by could read. It told of scanty food —of nights when the body shivered with cold—of a home without sunshine —of a young life confronted by mocking shadows. Then something curious happened. A laboring man—a queer old man with a woodsaw on his arm —crossed the street to rest for a moment beneath the same shade. He glanced at the boy and turned away, but his look was drawn again, and now he saw the picture and read the story. He too was poor ; he too knew what it was to shiver and hunger. He tip-toed along until he could bend over the boy, and then he took from his pocket a piece of bread and meat — the dinner he was to eat if he found work— and laid it down beside the lad. Then he walked carefully away, looking back every moment, but hastening out of sight as if he wanted to escape thanks. Men, women, and children had seen it all, and what a lever it was ! The human heart is ever kind and generous, but sometimes there is need of a key to open it. A man walked down the eteps and left a half-dollar beside the poor man's bread. A woman walked down and left a good hat in the place of the old one. A child came with a pair of shoes, and a boy brought a coat and vest. Pedestrians halted and whispered, and dropped dimes and quarters beside the first silver piece. Something curious had happened. The charity of a poor old man bad unlocked tho heart of a score of people. Then something strange occurred. '1 he pinched-faced boy suddenly awoke, and sprang up as if it were a crime to sleep there. He saw the bread —the clothing—the money—the scores of people waiting around to see what he would do. He knew that lie had slept, and he realised that all those things had come to him as he dreamed. Then what did he do ? Why he sat down, and covered his face with bis bands, and sobbed like a grieved child. They had read him a lesson greater than all the sermons of the churches. They had set his heart to swelling and jumping until it choked him. Poor, ragged, and wretched, ancl feeling that ho was no more to the

world than a stick or a stone —he had awakened to find that the world regarded him as a human being, worthy of aid and entitled to pity.—' Detroit Free Press,'