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Summer Separation

Summer Separation image
Parent Issue
Day
24
Month
August
Year
1877
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Jnue is the montli of iove, joy, and August tl i at of ite ngouy. In June two hearts kuit togetber and beconae one. In August two bodies separate. Slie goes away to see her mother'saunt in the country, and he stays at home, working the treadmill of duty. This comes fiard on all men, but its weight is the heaviest on the grocery clerk. His heart is not in his work. How can it bc? Where the treasure is theré will the lieart be also, and the treasure is f ar away. He cannot smile on the oustomer. He cannot counterfeit successfully that expreseion of all-absorbing interest which makes clerkship a thing of beauty. Certainly his is a most critical task. The variety and diversity of the articles in ■which he deais require that he should keep his wits about him. In this particular he is in almostos much danger as the drug clerk, whilo tho opportunities f or slipping are a liundred fold, A Danbury man, who went to a drug store to have a prescription prepared, seoing nobody but a clerk present, said : " Young man, are .you keeping company with a girl ?" " Yes, sir," answered tlie clerk, with a blush. " Do you think the world of her?" " I do," said the clerk. firmly, although blushing considerably. "Is she in town?" pursued the custonicr, anxiously. " No, sir ; she is away on a visit." "Tli at Will do," said the man, deeisively. "You can't fooi around any prescription for me." And he went away. But it is the grocery clerk who has to struggle from early morn till late at night with a flood of annoyances. When he dips into the sugar barrel he thinks of her lips and sighs. In cutting the cheese he is reminded of the strength of his devotion to her, and when he looks into the butter flrkin his thoughts stray to her liair. When he would go away by himself and give expression to his emotions he is obliged to help lift a barrel of corned beef, or roll a cask of salt or open a cask of lard. It is oiily when he is dealing out mackerel that he feels as if he had a companion in his sorrow, a sympathizer iu grief. There is that softened, subdued light in the eye of a salt mackerel which touches a responsive chord in the heart of suffering and awakens it to plaintive melody. How tenderly he lifts it from the kit, how lovingly he lingers in wrapping it up. Poor fellow ! He may put up washing starch for baking powaer, draw molasses in the kerosene can, and even attempt to palm off various things for tea. He may do this. It is more than likely that he will. But the expression of a mackerel's eye will not change. The soft, subdued

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus