THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
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post, like a blind, wild animal. Then he ran on till he 
got to the end of the court and out into the street,—the 
dark, still street, and he saw one man in it, and he made 
up to him. The man turned, and, seeing Jerry coming 
towards him with his awl, so wild and strange, began to 
quicken his pace. 
But Jerry got up to him, and made a spring, and 
threw both his arms round him so violently that the man 
was felled to the ground. 
“ Don’t run away from me ! Feller-creetur, brother, 
I got more on me nor I can bear, come and help me ! 
You slia’n’t go away till you’ve helped me ! ” 
“Let me go,” said the man, struggling,—“ let me go 
free, will you? ” 
“Hah ! ” cried Jerry; and, looking down on his face, 
with his knee on. his chest, and his awl raised above 
him, he saw it was Dan Harroway. 
The cause of all his trouble that night was there 
under his knee, and the awl which through him had 
been nearly turned against his little children was in his 
hand. Didn’t it seem like justice put into his own 
hands to deal? The knee planted on Dan’s chest shook, 
and the eyes looking down upon him blazed like balls 
of fire. 
Dan Harroway thought his last was come. Suddenly 
he felt the weight gone off his chest, and looking up he 
saw the back of a ragged figure, which seemed to be 
wringing its hands, with the awl in them, and then he 
saw it run back down the dark court. 
Yes, Jerry was running back. He had been to the 
world for help, and it had sent him greater temptation. 
Where was he to go now? 
Now, while Jerry rushed back down the dark quiet 
court, crying to himself, “Who’ll help me? Is there 
nobody as’ll help me?” there flashed upon him a recol¬ 
lection of a stoiy he had heard,—a story which had 
always struck him as being much too hard to believe in, 
and much too wonderful to be at all true; but now, I 
say, the recollection of it struck upon him like a sudden 
light in his darkness. 
He began to run faster. He passed his owu house. 
He came to the other end of the court, and out into the 
great brick-fields. 
Just before him was a high heap of bricks and stones 
and rubbish, where a house had been pulled down. 
Jerry had but one thought just then, he wanted to get 
high. He seemed as if he couldn’t get high enough for 
what he wanted. So he began to climb this mound, 
sticking his bare feet into the sharp stones and broken 
bricks till they bled, and helping himself up with his 
hands till they bled, and when he got to the very 
top he was well nigh fainting, and he fell upon his 
knees. 
The big, set moon seemed to be on a level with his 
head as it stared at him through two window-holes of a 
half-finished house, and it lighted everything; the pool 
of black water below him, the frosted rushes growing 
round it, and the gray line of field rats passing from the 
cellar of one of the new houses to a hole in the clay- 
bank. ( 
Jerry threw up his two arms, still holding the awl, 
and cried out as loud as ever he could cry in his faint¬ 
ness,— 
“If You as made me,” says he, “can see me now ; if 
You knows me better than I knows You, come anigh 
mo! I don’t arst You for myself. There’s somethin’a 
tearin’ my inside like a wild beast; but that I can bear. 
What I arst You is, save my little uns from me! Save 
Dan Harroway from me ! Come anigh me, wherever 
You are, and lay hold on this yer. I’m only a poor 
human creetur, and there’s more put on me nor I can 
bear, an’ it’s makin’ a devil of me. I don’t know how 
to get at You, I don’t know no prayers ; but I tell You 
as I want You ; if ever any poor creetur You’ve made 
ever wanted You, I do. O, come anigh me! Come 
anigh me?” 
Did anything come anigh him? Jerry says as the 
wind rose he heal'd a rustling all about the mound, like 
a swooping down of great wings or garments, and his 
hand got loose, and the awl went whirling down, and 
fell with a splash into the black water ; and Jerry, 
when he heard the splash, fell a-trembling and hiding 
his face with his two hands. 
He wasn’t alone, he says; the sweep-down of wings 
and the talking in the winds went on. For some time 
—how long lie could not tell—he seemed to be lifted 
right up out of his trouble, and he didn’t feel the sharp 
stones under his knees ; and lie stayed with those that 
seemed to have come about him till the moon went 
down in the window-hole. 
At last the bark of a dog made him remember himself, 
and he looked up, and, finding his awl gone, gave a great 
shout for joy. 
“ You’ve heered me,” he said,—“You’ve heered me; 
and I ain’t alone, nor my little uns ain’t alone ; they’ve 
got a better father ’an me.” 
Then he came down, slipping and sliding among the 
stones, and began to run home all shaking and close to 
the ground like a lamb just out of the lion’s jaw. f 
As he ran, the dog he had heard bark came across his 
path with a crust of bread in his mouth, and Jerry 
seized him by the nape, and took the crust from him, 
and ran home to divide it amongst his children. 
When he had got in, though, that wild beast he had 
told of on the mound clawed him for it; and he was 
just going to fall upon and devour it, and had got it 
between his teeth, when another wonderful old story, 
coming across him, made him stop and think. 
He cleared the table ; he moved all the rubbish on the 
floor on one side with his foot, and covered it over. 
Then he began looking about for some kind of a table¬ 
cloth. He found one, clean and white, in a drawer, and 
he felt ready to cry with gratefulness to Nance that she 
should have such a thing. He spread it on the table, 
and then he took his crust and laid it in the middle; and 
after looking at it a long time, he went out softly and 
shut the door. 
He crawled up stairs once more, so faint that he could 
scarce drag one foot after the other. 
The children were all awake, and wailing still. Jerry 
'tent and took ’em up, and cuddled ’em one by one in 
his poor tired arms, and said, with the tears running 
dowu his cheeks,— 
“ Don’t cry, little uns ; I’ve been out and I couldn’t 
get you nothing, but coming back I see a dog with a 
crust in his mouth, and I lugged it away, and it lies on 
the table down below, and" I’m a goin’ to arst Him as 
they say made seven loaves and five little fishes feed four 
thousand creeturs, if He won’t make that ’ere little 
crust below enough to fill us by mornin’. So go to sleep, 
little uns, and you, Nance, my woman, go to sleep,— 
go to sleep all on you, and let Him do His will by that 
