A Devoted Wife

A Devoted Wife.

Chambers' Journal

  In my fathers poultry-yard -was a game-cock, the most beautiful bird of the kind I ever saw. He had several wives, and it was a curious thing to see the different airs and graces of the ladies of the train. He was an inveterate fighter, if he could escape the yard, which was surrounded by a high wall. By some means an accident had happened to his foot an he became lame. My brother, who was a medical student, advised us to to poultice it. Mamma undertaking this, Ralph came every morning to have his foot dressed, and, though evidently suffering very much, allowed her to attend to it. But no improvement came, and the poor bird began to droop.

    One day we heard a loud noise: a famous game-cock had come into the yard when the gate was left open,attacked Ralph, and had beaten him severely. He was sorely injured, though he defended himself well. Mamma picked him up and carried him away, but the next morning he was out in the yard warming himself in the sun. I was very glad I was there to see what I then saw, or I was there to see what I then saw, or I could not have believed it. Ralph had been beaten! He was no longer to be honored by his faithful wives. They came first one by one, and then altogether peeked at him, and at last the prettiest and his favorite, went straight up to him and gave him a severe dab near the eye.

  But there was one faithful friend among them, an awkward bustling brown hen, with no pretensions to beauty, who flew to his rescue, stood resolutely before the prostrate bird, for he has sunk to the ground as it heartbroken- and sheltered him with her wings. It was useless to leave him in the poultry-yard, so he and his faithful brown hen were placed in the garden, the tool-house being left open for them through the night. Some weeks passed and Ralph grew weaker, till one morning we found him dead. A grave was dug, and his faithful wife saw him placed in it. She was taken back to the yard, but she never rallied; and a few days after we saw her lying cold and lifeless on the spot where the friend of her generous heart lay buried.   

   Charles Dye, employed in a Cincinnati stove foundry, while on an elevator in the warerooms at the fourth floor, saw the belt break and felt the elevator, on which were six stoves, start downward like a flash. But Charles was also quick and cool. As the elevator shot by the door on the third floor, he made a dart and landed on the third floor, safely at just about the same time that the elevator and stoves reached the cellar with a crash that shattered both stoves and elevator.