248 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
TANDING FOR 
PORTRAIT . — Engraved, for the American Agriculturist 
The manly looking lad who is standing to have his pic- 
ture taken, need not be ashamed of it, if the artist draws 
It correctly. There is something in his face and manner 
•which marks him as the finest boy in the group. Com- 
pare his countenance with that of the little fellow 
who is looking on the paper as the drawing progresses, 
and notice how much more strength of character it 
shows. He does not allow his attention to be called 
away from the business in hand, by the whispering of 
the mischievous urchin who is trying to make him turn 
his head, but remains steady in his position. Will this 
boy keep his fine face, which the artist is trying to draw ? 
He may by continuing to be as noble and virtuous as his 
looks indicate ; but should he permit bad passions to rule 
nim, they will sadly change it. It is related of one of 
the old painters that he drew the portrait of a beautiful 
ooy, to represent "Innocence." Many years after he 
wished to exhibit a picture of " Guilt," and searched 
through the prisons for a man whose looks would best 
express it. At last he found one, whose every feature 
was made hideous by wickedness, and painted his like- 
ness. What was his astonishment afterward, to learn 
that it was the same person whose picture he had taken 
when a boy. Vice had left its deforming marks, and 
transformed the beautiful boy into a monster.— Few ac- 
complishments which a boy may learn will yield more 
pleasure than the art of drawing. Some have a natural 
talent for it, and become skillful in it very easily ; but 
any young person with the full use of his eyes and fin- 
gers may succeed at least tolerably well ; enough to cor- 
rectly represent all common objects, ft is considered a 
disgrace not to be able to write, and the same pains 
taken in learning to draw would give equal success as in 
learning to use the pen. At times such knowledge is of 
the greatest use, as by it descriptions can be given and 
facts preserved much better than by any use of words. 
A good teacher may greatly aid in learning to draw, but 
after all, practice must give skill, and this may be had 
without any instructor. Take a lead, or slate pencil, 
and begin by trying to draw straight lines without a 
ruler, then curved ones, and when this can be done with 
ease and precision, endeavor to copy plain figures. By 
persevering for an hour or less time every clay, you will 
be surprised with your progress in less than a year. 
A Mother's Mantl. 
In one of the fierce engagements with the rebels near 
Mechanicsville, in May last, a young lieutenant of a 
Rhode Island battery had his right foot so shattered by a 
fragment of shell that, on reaching Washington after one 
of those horrible ambulance rides, and a journey of a 
week's duration, he was obliged to undergo amputation 
of the leg. He telegraphed home, hundreds of miles 
away, that all was going well, and with a soldier's forti- 
tude composed himself to bear his sufferings alone. Un- 
known to him, however, his mother, who had become anx- 
ious for the welfare of her son, had come to Washington. 
She reached the city at midnight, and the nurses would 
have kept her from him until morning. One sat by his 
side fanning him as he slept, her hand on the feeble, fluc- 
tuating pulsations which forboded sad results. But what 
woman's heart could resist the pleadings of a mother 
then ? In the darkness, she was finally allowed to glide 
in and take the place at his side. She touched his pulse 
as the nurse had done. Not a word had been spoken ; 
but tiie sleeping boy opened his eyes and said : "That 
feels like rny mother's hand ! Who is this beside me? 
It is my mother ; turn up the gas, and let me see mother !" 
The two faces met in one long, joyful, sobbing em- 
brace, and the fondness pent up in each heart sobbed and 
panted and wept forth its expression. Tho gallant fellow 
just twenty-one, his leg amputated on the last day of his 
three years' service, underwent operation after operation, 
and at last, when death drew nigh, and he was told by 
tearful friends that it only remained to make him com- 
fortable said "he had looked death in the lace too many 
times to be afraid now," and died as gallantly as though 
falling under the enemy's fire on the field of battle. 
The Value of 4nood. Manners. 
A man of good repute in Wall-st., New- York, the oth- 
er day applied to a well-known citizen to rent him a fur- 
nished house. He was refused. A mutual friend ex- 
pressed surprise: "He stands well on the street." "Yes." 
"His family are highly esteemed." "Yes." "He is 
known to be punctual in all his pecuniary engagements." 
" Yes." " Well, why don't you let him have your house, 
at your own price, while you are away ?" " Because, he 
came into my parlor and sat on my sofa with his hat on. 
Such a man can not have habits of personal neatness. 
He would spit on my carpets ; he would break my chair 
backs tilting them against the wall, and soil it with his 
unkempt hair. The presumption is, his family are like 
him at all events, and he alone could injure my furniture 
more in six months than would be the profits of renting. 
No sir ! a man who sits in my parlor with his hat on, the 
first time he enters it, can not rent my house at any price." 
Let the young remember that the character will "crop 
out " in the manners, in the little actions of life, and that 
if these are unexceptionable, and if they are uniformly 
neat, methodical, prompt, and energetic, these qualities 
will prove a passport to " good places," arid to that 
thrift which brings with it a quiet mind and length of days. 
Child-like.— A mother trying to get her little daughter 
of three years old to sleep one night, said to her, " Anna 
why don't you try to go to sleep?" "I am trying," she 
replied. "But you haven't shut your eyes." "Well, 
can't help it ; urns comes unbuttoned." 
The boy who undertook to ride a horse-radish, Is now 
practising on a saddle of mutton, without any sliirups, 
