The Little Outcast

Mayn'tlstay. jna'am? 111 do anything you give me - cut wood, go after water, and do all your errands." The troubled eyes of tbe speaker filled witb tears. Tt was a lad that stood at the óuter door, pleading with a kind looking woman, who still seemed to doubt his good intentions. The cottage sat by itself on a bleak moor, or what in Scotch would have been called such. The time wag near the end of November, a fierce wind rattled the boughs of the only naked tree near the house, and fled with a shiveriug sound inlo the narrow doorway, as if seeking for warmth at the blazing fire within. Now and then a gnow flake touched, with its soft chili, the cheek of tbe listener, or whitened the angry redness of the poor boy's benumbed hands. Tho woman was evidently loth to grant the boy'e request, and the peculiar look staniped upon his features would have suggested to any mind an idea of depravity far beyond his years. But her mother's heart eould not resist the sorrow in those large, but not handsonie, gray eyes. " Uome in, at any rate, till the gudeman comes home; there, sit down by the fire ; you look perishing with cold." And she drew a ruda chair to the warmest corner, then suspiciously glaucing at the child from the corners of her eyes, she continued setting the table for supper. Presently came the tramp of heavy shoes, the door swung open with a quick jerk and the " gudeinan" presented bimaelf, weary with labor. A look of intelligence passed between his wife and himself-- he too scanned the boy's face with an expression not evincing satisfaction, but nevertheless, made him come to the table, and then enjoyed the zest with which he dispatched his supper. Day after day passed, and yet the boy begged to be kept " only till to-morrow ;" so the good couple, after due consideration, coricluded that so long as he was docile and worked so heartily, they would rctain him, One day, in the middle of winter, a peddler, long accustomed to trade at tho ottage, made his appearance, and dis-po eed of his goods readily, as he had been waited for " You have a boy out there splitting wood, I see," he Baid, poiuting to. the yard " Ycs ; do you know him V' " I have seen him," replied the peddler, evasively. ' And where ? - who is he - what is be?" 11 A jail bird !" and tbe peddler swung his pack over his shoulder ; " that boy, yeuug as he looks, I saw in the court, myself, and heard his seutence - ten months; he's a hard one - you'd do well to look keerful arter him." Oh ! there was something so horrible in the word "jail," that the poor woman trcnibled as she laid aay her purchases, nor could she be easy till she had called the boy in and aesurod him tbat ehe kuew the dark part of his history. Ashamed and distressed, the child hung down his head ; his cheeks seenied bursting with his hot blood ; his lip quivered, and anguish was painted vividly upon his forehead, as if the words were branded in his flesh. ' Well," he muttered, his whole frame rclazing as if a burden of guilt or joy had suddenly rolled ofif, " I ïnay as well go to ruin at once - there's no use in niy trying to be bcttcr - everybody bates and dospises me - nobody cares about me. I may as well go to ruin at once I" " Teil me," said the woman, wlio stood off far onougb for flight, if that should be neeessary ; " how carae you to go so young to that dreadfnl place ? "VVhere was your tnothcr ?" " Oh I" exclaimed tho boy, with rush of grief that waa terrible to behold, " Oh 1 I hain't got no mother - oh I I hain't had no mothcr ever sinee I was a baby. If I'd only a mother," he continued, bis anguish growing vehement, and the tcars gushing out of his strange looking gray eyes, " I wouldn't 'a been bound out and kicked and cuffed, and laid on to with whips; I wouldu't 'a got knocked down, and then run away. and stole because I was hungry. Oh 1 I hain't got no moth er since I was a baby. " fc The strength was all gone from the poor boy, and he sank on his kneos sobbiug great choking sobs, and rubbing hot tears with his kuuckles. And did that woman stand there unmoved ? Did she boldly bid bina pack up and be off - the jail bird,? No. no - she had boen a mother, ar.d although all her ohildren slept under the cold sod iu the churchyard, waa a mother still. She went up to that poor boy, uot to hasten him away, but to lay her fingers kindly, softly ou his head - to tell him to look up, and from henceforth to find in her a mother. Yes, she eveu put her arm around the neck of that forsaken. deserted child - she poured from her mothcr's heart swect, womanly words, words of counsel and tenderness. Oh ! how swoet was her sleep that night - how soft was her pillow ! She had linked a poor sufíering heart to hers by the most silken, the strongest bands of love. She had plucked some thorns from the path of a littie sinuing but striviug mortal None but angels could witness her holy joy and not envy, Did the boy leave her 'I Never- he is with her still ; a vigorous, manly, promising youth. The low character ot' his couutenance has given place to au open, pleasing expression, with depth enough to make it an interestiug study. His foster-lather is doad ; bis good foster-mothur - aged and sickly- but she knows no want. The ouce poor ontcast is her oaly dcpendeuce, aud nobly does he repay the trust. " He that saveth a soul from death, hideth a multitude of sina."