THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
195 
the rest of them. I say, Sam ! ” he exclaimed, as a new 
idea seemed to strike him, “ I bet he’s one of the kind 
Darwin tells about, that turned inter men, you know ; 
this little fellow’s just a turnin’, you see, jest learnin’ 
to talk. But ain’t he a prize, though !—bigger attrac¬ 
tion than the six-legged calf or the bearded woman. 
We must put him in a cage by hisself : the empty one, 
you know, that the hippopotamus always ‘ died in jest 
last week, ladies and gentlemen.’ Keep him there till 
Mr. Forepaugh comes ’round.” 
George Abraham, who had revived somewhat on feel¬ 
ing himself on solid earth, was again seized with a great 
trembling ; his limbs gave way beneath him, and he 
began to sob piteously. 
“Poor little tar-pot!” said the elder man, speaking 
for the first time since he had threatened destruction to 
Jonathan, and there was sympathy and a suspicion of 
indignation in his tone. “Dick, a joke’s a joke, but this 
has gone far enough.” 
It did not take George Abraham, in his desperate ex¬ 
tremity, long to realize that he had found a friend. 
Frantically grasping ‘ 1 Sam ” by the skirts of his coat, 
he begged: 
“ Oh, mister, don’t let him, please don’t let him put 
me inter a.cage ! I isn’t a monkey, Ps only a pore little 
nigger, and if yo’ help me git out ob here I’ll nebber 
crawl under de tent agin, ’deed I won’t.” 
Hard-hearted Dick was convulsed with laughter at the 
scene, and the monkeys above chattered and screamed 
aDd grinned accompaniment; but the older man was 
not entirely hardened by his life as a circus attache. 
As he lifted George Abraham to his feet he said to Dick, 
quietly, “ I am going out for my dinner, and I will take 
care of him. Pick up your cat and stop your crying, 
my boy, and I’ll show you the way out,” and he half led 
half dragged George Abraham to the main entrance,, 
exhorting him on the way never again to try to steal 
his way into a show of any kind, which his charge very 
fervently promised. Instead of releasing the little black 
hand he held when he reached the door, he led the boy 
to a lunch-stand and said to the proprietor : 
‘ 1 Here, give me one of those cards of gingerbread ; ” 
and having received and paid for it he proceeded to be¬ 
stow the whole square foot of ambrosia upon George 
Abraham, with these parting words, not unkindly 
spoken : 
“ There, that’s to pay for your scare. Now skip ! ” 
And the recipient of this amazing gift, though it 
nearly bereft him of the little wit he had brought out of 
the tent, retained just sufficient instinct of self-preserva¬ 
tion to follow the injunction immediately and with all 
the velocity he could extort from his short legs. 
He very soon put a safe distance between himself 
and the circus grounds, and, pausing on a slight eleva¬ 
tion overlooking the tent, he thus apostrophized 
himself: 
“George Abraham Fairfax, if yo’ aint de luckiest 
nigger in dis yere town ! Yo’ ’scape from dem monkeys 
am mo’ mirac’lous dan Dan’l from de lions’ den. If 
dey’d got holt yo’ wunst dey’d clawed de wool offen yo’ 
head, an’ de breeches offen yo’ legs, an’ if yo’ libbed to 
git home yo’ mammy’d skinned yo’ shore ! ” 
“An’ dis gingerbread, now,” filling his mouth from 
it and bestowing a liberal piece upon Jonathan, “ beat- 
de mannar ob de Isrulites how it corned. Sabed me 
nods der skinnin’, for I didn’t know more’n a baby 
whar I’s gwine to git dat gingerbread I promised 
Marfy.” 
George Abraham did not get home any too soon ; had 
he been longer on the road Martha’s share of the ginger¬ 
bread would have been painfully small; and, besides, 
he found Martha, and as a matter of course, Charles 
Sumner also, in the depths of despair over his prolonged 
absence. But the fragment of gingerbread made lasting 
peace, since George Abraham was shrewd enough not 
to tell how large the original cake had been ; and his 
description of the procession delighted Martha beyond 
measure. It goes without saying that the monkey epi¬ 
sode was entirely omitted from the narrative. 
Late in the day Sirs. Fairfax returned in high spirits; 
she bore in her hand a large paper bag, which, when 
opened, revealed—gingerbread! two great cards of it. 
“I’s brunged dis from de circus for yo’, honey, kase 
yo’s been a good boy, and minded yo’ mammy and 
stayed to home all day;” and with this she bestowed the 
bundle upon George Abraham, with the injunction that 
he divide with his brother and sister. 
But what had come over the boy ? A moment before 
he had been exulting in his heart that he had seen' the 
circus in spite of mammy, and had been so lucky in 
buying Martha’s silence. Now he could not raise his 
eyes from the floor, and a great lump rose in his throat; 
the vision of the vicious monkeys danced before him, 
aud he wondered how so bad a boy as he, a boy who 
could disobey so good a mammy, had been permitted to 
escape being torn to pieces by them. 
He dropped his face on his ragged shirtsleeve and 
sobbed out: 
“ Oh, I isn’t a good boy, mammy; I’se powerful bad. 
I runned away to de circus and wa’n’t nebber gwine to 
tell ye!” 
Then there was a tableau in the Fairfax family. 
Martha Washington looked upon the culprit as if she 
expected the earth to open and swallow him up. Mrs. 
Fairfax’s jaw dropped in the excess of her astonishment, 
giving her the appearance of desiring to swallow him up 
herself, while George Abraham bowed over the moun¬ 
tain of gingerbread, and, with a singularly light heart, 
awaited the descending hairbrush. 
But it did not descend. Mrs. Fairfax had great'faitli 
in discipline, but she placed repentance above even this 
potent means of grace, and a voluntary confession from 
her first born was something that her ears had never be¬ 
fore listened to—a miracle that almost paralyzed her. 
When she recovered the use of her organs of speech, she 
merely said: “Well, yo’ hab been a bad little limb, but 
yo’s a good boy to ’fess; an’ I’ll forgib you dis time. 
But mind yo’ nabber do so no mo’. As Brudder Lamp¬ 
black said in class-meetin’ las’ Sunday, ‘ True ’pentance 
ain’t like de water-million season, hit las’ all de yea’ 
roun’.’ ” 
So joy reigned in the Fail fax family, for that evening 
at least. George Abraham had seen the circus, but car¬ 
ried withal a clear conscience; and for Martha Wash¬ 
ington there was gingerbread galore. As to Mrs. Fair¬ 
fax, she was an unenlightened woman, but into her 
darkness the incident had sent a gleam of light which 
brightened her heart, even while it burdened her brain 
somewhat. She had learned that motherly love and 
tenderness made manifest, are more potent in curbing 
a wayward boy than all the hairbrushes made by man. 
— Mrs. M. L. Evans in Christian Union. 
