348 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
THE LONDON MERCHANT. 
John Oakheart and Son are Baltic mer¬ 
chants. Young John entered his father’s 
office as a clerk at sixty pounds a year, of 
which he paid his mother forty for his board, 
lodging and washing, and clothing himself 
with the odd twenty. Do not imagine that 
Mr. Oakheart’s establishment required this 
assistance. The old gentleman desired to 
make his son feel independent—he was a 
man, he earned his own livelihood, and 
should feel that he supported himself. At 
25 years of age, young Oakheart marries, 
receiving with his wife a moderate sum of 
money. He wants to purchase a share of 
his father’s business; they cannot come to 
terms. Young John can make a better bar¬ 
gain with a rival house in the trade. The 
old man hesitates; he likes the sound of .1. 
Oakheart & Son; but business is business. 
Had his son married a penniless girl the 
father would have given him what he now 
refuses to sell; but now business is business 
he thinks, and as after calculation he can’t do 
it. So Young John becomes chief partner in a 
rival firm to that which must one day be his, 
and trades against the old man, whose only 
aim is to lay up wealth for his son. 
Every day, at 4 o’clock, leaning against a 
particular corner on ’Change, stands the 
elder merchant, his hands deeply sunk into 
his dog’s eared pockets. A young city man 
approaches ; they exchange a quiet, careless 
nod : 
“ Feel inclined to discount for 1,200 at long 
date ?” 
“ What name ?” asked old John. 
“ My own. I will give 4 per cent. 
“ I should want more than that, as money 
goes—say 4^.” 
“ The brokers only ask 4£.” replied the 
young man. 
“ Then give it.” And they separate with 
an indifferent nod. That was father and 
son. 
Every Sunday, young John and his wife 
dine at Russel Square, in the same house 
where old Oakheart has lived for thirty 
years. His name has been cleaned out of 
the brass plate on the door. This house 
young John still looks upon and speaks of it 
as his home. All the associations of his 
childhood are there—every piece of furni¬ 
ture is an old friend—every object is sacred 
in his eyes, from his own picture, taken at 
four years old, with its chubby face and fat 
legs, to the smoke-dried print of General 
Abercrombie. They form the architecture 
of that temple of his heart, his home. 
After dinner the ladies have retired. The 
curtains are comfortably closed. The crack¬ 
ling fire glows with satisfaction, and old John 
pushes the bottle across to his son, for, if 
old John has a weakness, it is for tawney 
port. 
“Jack, my boy,” says he, “what do you 
want with 1,200 pounds 1” 
“ Well, sir,” replied young John, “ there is 
a piece of ground next to my villa at Brixton, 
and they threaten to build upon it—if so, 
they will spoil our view. Emily,” meaning 
his wife, “ has often begged me to buy it, and 
inclose it in our garden. Next Wednesday 
is her birth-day, and I wish to gratify her 
with a surprise ; but I have reconsidered the 
matter—I ought not to afford it—so I have 
given it up.” 
“Quite right, Jack,” responded the old 
man. “ It would have been a piece of ex¬ 
travagance,” and the subject drops. 
Next Wednesday, on Emily’s birth-day, 
the old couple dine with the young folks, and 
just before dinner, old John takes his daughter- 
in-law aside, and places in her hands a 
parchment—it is the deed of the little plot 
of ground she coveted. He stops her thanks 
with a kiss and hurries away. 
Ere the ladies retire from the table, Emily 
finds time to whisper the secret to her hus¬ 
band. And the father and son are alone. 
Watch the old man’s eyes, fixed on the fire 
for he has detected this piece of affectionate 
treachery, and is almost ashamed of his act, 
because he does not know how to receive his 
son’s thanks. In a few moments a deep, 
gentle feeling broods upon the young man’s 
heart, he has no words—it is syllabled in 
emotions that make his lips tremble, he lays 
his hand upon his father’s arm, and their 
eyes meet. 
“ Tut, Jack, sir! pooh! sir, it must all 
come to you some day. God bless you, my 
boy, and make you as happy at my age as I 
am now.” In silence the souls of these men 
embrace. But who is that seraph that gath¬ 
ers them beneath her outspread angel wings? 
I have seen her iinking distant hearts, parted 
by the whole world. She is the good genius 
of the Anglo-Saxon family, and her name is 
home. — Mr. Bartlett's Sketches of European 
Society. 
ALBERT SMITH ON READING IN BED. 
1 plead guilty to the very bad habit of 
reading in bed—always, at any hour, under 
any circumstances. It has become such a 
second nature, that I cannot go to sleep with¬ 
out it; and so, in strange houses, I am driv¬ 
en sometimes to desperate shifts to gratify 
the propensity, both as regards the light and 
the book. The arrangement of the light is 
very troublesome at times. If you put the 
candlestick on the pillow, occasionally it 
falls back and sets the curtains on fire and 
burns the house down, and then the owner 
gets annoyed and don’t ask you again. If 
you build up a contrivance with the chair 
and water-jug, it tumbles over equally, and 
goes out at once, cutting short an interesting 
bit. It is not much safer balanced on the 
double top of the towel horse. The best ar¬ 
rangement, on experience, is a long drawer, 
pulled out and turned up on its edge. With 
respect to the book, it is m} r own negligence 
to blame if I have not got one : but I have 
been so destitute of anything to read that I 
have even unfolded pieces of newspapers, in 
which different things in my portmanteau 
have been wrapped up, and studied the Ga¬ 
zette of weeks ago ; or an honorable mem¬ 
ber’s speech whose name had been torn off; 
or the list of distinguished personages whose 
corns have been cured ; or some unimport¬ 
ant French news—“ the greater portion of 
which appeared in our impression of yester¬ 
day”—until heavy eyelids warned me to put 
out the candle. I had no book one Christ- 
mas-eve night. I could have gone down to 
the book-shelves, but I did not care to dis¬ 
turb the house creaking up and down stairs ; 
and so I hunted about the room, and at last, 
in the drawer of the dressing table, I found 
a local railway guide. It was not a very 
promising pamphlet. Even Bradshaw flags 
in sustained interest if you read it through 
continuously ; unless it be that you marvel 
at that wonderful map occasionally intro¬ 
duced among the advertisements, of the po¬ 
sition of a particular London hotel, where 
you turn round to the right on Oxford-street, 
and to the left into Cheapside, and cross over 
the way to the London bridge terminus, and 
walk out at the back door into Regent’s 
park. [Mark Lane Express. 
Boys, Look at This. —That “ honesty is 
the best policy,” was illustrated some years 
since, under the following circumstances : 
A lad was proceeding to an uncle’s to peti¬ 
tion him for a sick sister and her children, 
when he found a pocket wallet containing 
$50. The aid was refused,and the distressed 
family was pinched with want. The boy 
revealed his fortune to his mother, but ex¬ 
pressed a doubt about using any portion of 
the money. His mother confirmed his good 
resolution, and the pocket book was adver¬ 
tised and the owner found. Being a man of 
wealth upon learning the history ofthe fami¬ 
ly, he presented the $50 to the sick mother 
and took the boy in his service, and he is 
now one of the most successful merchants 
in Ohio. “ Honesty always brings its re¬ 
ward—to the mind, if not to the pocket,” 
but it always does in the long run, to the 
pocket as well as to the mind. 
SUNNYSIDE. 
The following interesting particulars of 
“Sunnyside,” the residence of Washington 
Irving, we find in the Detroit Tribune : 
The house at “ Sunnyside,” in which 
Washington Irving resides, is one he built 
some three years ago. It is about two and 
a half miles below Tarry town, directly on 
the Banks of the Hudson. It is built on the 
site of the “Van Tassel House.” In fact, 
the new structure includes a portion of the 
old walls. At an earlier day it was called 
Wolfert’s Roost—Wolfert Acker being one 
of the Privy Councillors of the renowned 
Peter Stuyvesant. Afterward it came into 
the possession of the Van Tassels. It was 
here that the quilting party and dance took 
place so graphically described in the Legends 
of Sleepy Hollow. It was here that the 
unfortunate Ichabod Crane and Brow Bows 
unequivocally met, both being suitors for the 
hand and heart of Kate Van Tassel. Your 
readers will recall the amusing incidents of 
that story, and especially the last appear¬ 
ance of Ichabod Crane. A weather cock of 
miserable appearance is perched upon the 
gable end of the main building. It was once 
the ornament of the old Stadt House of New- 
York, in the time of the old Dutch rule. 
The House is surrounded by trees—some 
wild and some planted by Irving. The 
buildings are nearly covered with vines and 
creepers. The Trumpet-flower and Ivy-vine 
are the most conspicuous of them. The 
ivy, that grows unusually rank, has a pecu¬ 
liar interest. It was brought from Melrose 
Abbey, near Abbotsford, Scotland, some 
twenty years ago. It was brought by a Mrs. 
Trenwick, an intimate friend of Mr. Irving, 
and planted at “ Sunnyside ” by her own 
fair hands. This lady was a Miss Jean Jef¬ 
frey. Her father was a minister, and it was 
of this lovely girl, then about 17, that Burns 
wrote the beautiful stanzas among the gems 
of his poetry. 
Rev. Mark Trafton. —The Manchester 
(N. H.) Democrat has the following: 
Among the Members of Congress elect in 
Massachusetts is the Rev. Mark Trafton, 
whom many will remember as a lecturer in 
several of our churches two years ago. He 
is six feet two inches in his stockings. Mr. 
Trafton is a prompt, self-reliant speaker, and 
an incident is told us of him, while in Lon¬ 
don several years ago, which indicates that 
he will not be afraid of Senator Douglas. 
Wishing to enter the House of Lords (a favor 
never granted to ordinary travelers,) he 
walked up to the porter— 
“ Is Lord Brougham in his seat ?” 
“ He is.” 
“ Ask him to come to the door—afgentle- 
man wishes to see him.” 
In a few moments the porter returned with 
his lordship. 
“ I am Rev. Mark Trafton, of Massachu¬ 
setts, and ask of your lordship the favor of 
looking upon the House of Lords in session.” 
It is hardly necessary to add that he was 
very cordially ushercdjn. 
