OUR STEP-MOTHER.

BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND.

"WE

E sha n't like her, shall we, Frank?" "No, indeed!" He spoke the words with an emphasis which left no doubt of his conviction, while he pulled up the dandelions, whose golden stars were sown thick amidst the orchard grass. It was the time of the dropping of nuts, and sowing of wheat, a pleasant, slumberous, misty autumn day; and my brother Frank and I sat under one of the great apple-trees in the orchard back of our house.

I had mounted my eighth year, and Frank was two summers ahead of me. We had been orphans for more than half my life, and my memory could only gather up dim, shadowy fragments of the time when my mother's sweet face and soft voice dwelt among us. Her life had fallen away suddenly, and our father-our kind and tender father, who had mourned for her so bitterly, and carried her memory in his heart, like a box of myrrh, filling it with sweet fragrance, had spared his children the worst sorrows of the motherless.

He was faithfully aided by Betty, our nurse and general housekeeper. She had lived with our mother before her marriage, and was devotedly attached to her; and this affection was transferred to her orphan children.

I believe Betty loved us with a love that was like the love of mothers, and we were more attached to her than to any one besides our father. It was on the evening of my eighth birthday that I sat on my father's knee, dipping my fingers in his thick, black locks, and playing with the doll which he had given me, when he suddenly slipped the palm of his hand under my chin, and looking earnestly in my face, said: "Alice, how would you like me to bring you a new mother?" I laid the doll down in my lap, and meditated seriously a moment. "I do n't think that I should like her very much, papa. I'd rather have you, and Betty, and Frank, here all alone, just as we do now."

"But, my child, the mother that I shall bring you will be gentle, and sweet, and good, and will love you and make you happier than I can."

I shook my head. "Will she make you forget our mamma, papa?"

ejaculations of astonishment and pity. So that at last the vision of our future step-mother had become, with my brother and me, something repulsive and terrible.

We did not communicate our feelings to our father, and when he informed us one morning, on leaving home, that he should be absent for several days, and when he returned that it would not be alone, our hearts actually rose up against him, for we felt that in bringing a stranger to our home to take the place of our mother, he was doing the latter a great and irretrievable wrong.

He had been absent two days, when Frank and I went out to play in the orchard; but a shadow lay heavily upon our souls. We soon settled down quietly under our favorite old apple-tree.

"Betty says," I continued, answering my brother's emphatic rejoinder, "that our noses will jest be put out of joint. She never knew a stepmother that was n't always trying to come between a father and his own children, and she reckons that we'll see very different times now."

Frank's great black eyes flashed up suddenly on my face. "I'm not going to be abused by any step-mother, catch me!"

"So I say. I've just made up my mind not to like her one bit. What right has she to come here and take our poor, dear mamma's place-" and here I broke down suddenly in a burst of tears.

I think Frank cried too, though I am not quite certain, for he was a boy of ten years and considered himself quite too much of a man to have a girl see him cry.

At last he slipped his arm around my waist, "Come, Alice, do n't feel bad any more. Let's go into the house and get Betty to give us some corn to parch." We found Betty in the kitchen paring some late peaches for preserving. She was a little, dumpy body, with a pleasant face set full of wrinkles, and her hair was sifted in and out with gray, for her years were slipping into threescore.

Then he sat silent for a little while, and after ward he kissed me very tenderly, and walked

away.

I should scarcely have remembered this conversation, if Betty had not constantly reminded me of it, by doleful shakes of the head and broken

"What is a burnin' shame, Betty?" though I comprehended well enough the drift of her mean

ing.

"No matter, dear heart; only when I think of that sweet angel lyin' under the grass this blessed minnit, and a stranger comin' to take her place, and set herself up as mistress here, it's more 'n

UNCLE SHOBEK LEEDUM, OF MUDFOG, ILLINOIS.

MYPROS

BY J. L. CRANE.

UDFOG is the name we are pleased to give to a place on a certain railroad in Illinois. In this town there are several stores, as many groceries, three shoe shops, four physicians-at least there are four houses that have a piece of tin, painted blue, nailed by the side of the door with the word "doctor" over some body's name, in gilt letters. There is one house with a tailor sign and a sign for justice of the peace all on one board and under one name, indicating that one individual combined the capacities of dispensing to the people justice, peace, and "something to wear.'

Mudfog, as its name would seem to suggest, was built upon exceedingly flat and spongy ground. An ordinary observer, with the naked eye, standing on one of its principal streets would incline to the opinion that Mudfog was located on the lowest point of earth within the scope of his vision. Some of the enemies of the town have maliciously insinuated that the wells in that locality had to be banked up about the mouths thereof to prevent the water from running over their tops. The water in the streets and ditches seemed to be like a certain brute we read of, starving between two stacks of hay-it did n't know which way to run; and in its hesitation it did n't run at all, but stood still and stagnated. We say that it stood still simply from the fact that the "oldest inhabitant" had failed to observe at any time that there was the slightest inclination for it to run down hill; for the very good reason that there was no hill for it to run down. When I say it stood still, I do not wish to be understood that perfect quietness reigned over every miniature lake in and around Mudfog. For here, above all places, the chirp and croak of the frog, and the voice of the mud-turtle are the first to be heard and the last to be hushed in the whole land. And the most astonishing displays of frog gymnastics are witnessed here and hereabouts, which it is said would fill eastern naturalists with wonder and amazement.

The railroad has a water-tank in Mudfog; and it is said to be more reliable in its supplies than any other on the whole line of the road. The water in this town has the privilege of taking but two directions; one is up toward the sun, and the other down toward the center of gravity. And when we consider, on the one hand, the spongy nature of the soil, and on the other hand, the unbounded extent and density of the fog, we are at a loss to determine in which direction the current sets in the strongest. When we look up

and behold the unfathomable cloud of vapor that has exhaled from the earth, we are ready to award the prize to the sun; but when we step off the cars and plunge nine inches deep into the free soil of Mudfog, we are disposed to favor the claims of mother earth, to be the great absorbent that saves Mudfog from a destructive deluge.

Now, Mr. Shobek Leedum laid off Mudfog just at the time it was determined to build the railroad, for he once owned all the land in and immediately around the place. Before Mr. Shobek Leedum had become the proprietor of a town, and named the principal streets after his wife and children, the people had acquired the undignified habit of calling him "Uncle Shobe." He was an old settler, and familiar with all the pioneers in the country; and when he became the owner of a whole town, instead of the owner of a common farm, the people did not get above calling him "Uncle Shobe" still; which fact, we hope, will be sufficient excuse for our indulging in the same familiar appellation.

Uncle Shobe was born in Virginia; a fact he was certain to notice in his frequent allusions to his past history. And either to add luster to himself, or the land of his birth, he was certain to say, when referring to his native soil, that "Virginia was the mother of Presidents and other great men." One thing appeared certain, Uncle Shobe regarded the honor of being born in Virginia as being transcendently above any honor which Illinois could confer. Therefore, as this most distinguishing mark of earthly eminence had already been bestowed upon him thus early in life, he considered that dignity enough without making any special efforts to add thereto. He seemed to have an egotistical serenity in contemplating the thought, that if he was not made of better stuff than other folks, that he was certainly brought into being on better soil than the average of "Suckers."

Uncle Shobek, in early life, had joined the Church. He even advanced so far in the esteem of the society that he was generally called upon "to pitch the tune at preaching," and made considerable progress in other exercises pertaining to the sanctuary. But a strict regard for truth compels us to say that the march of mechanical improvement did not produce in him a corresponding march of religious improvement. To speak less figuratively, the establishment of a railroad through Uncle Shobe's farm, and of a depot on the flat part of a hundred-acre field, did not cause Uncle Shobek to advance in piety. When a portion of his farm, which before the days of railroads he would have sold for five dollars per acre, became worth one hundred dollars

per acre, he had to give it ninety-five times more care and attention than formerly. And some good people, who can not help noticing a change in the old habits of an old neighbor, were heard to say that he had transferred his fervency from the Church to his land. The schoolmaster, who had read "Combe" and "Fowler," said that "he was neglecting his organ of tune and encouraging his organ of acquisitiveness." The former concern and care he had manifested in arranging the aisles and seats, stoves and candle-holders, and other fixtures of the country church, had melted before the age of steam, and his brain was filled with corner-lots, business streets, and so forth.

Uncle Shobek soon became rich. When this important era in his life was reached-esteemed by him the most honorable event in his history, always excepting the renowned fact that he was born in Virginia-money became worth to him from twenty-five to fifty per cent. And one man, who had borrowed money from Uncle Shobek and had not the fear of wealth nor old Virginia before his eyes, was heard to say that "if old Uncle Shobe Leedum was to get to heaven and could n't make twenty per cent., he'd think he'd missed the place and walk out." Uncle Shobek became richer every day. Every day he had to be more watchful, not of himself, but of others who had bought lots and were trying to cheat him, and others who had borrowed money and were trying to shirk out of the interest, and still others who were trying to escape the payment of the principal. With him eternal vigilance was the price of wealth, and the shrewdest attention was requisite to prevent faithless debtors from slipping through the meshes of the law.

He

Uncle Shobek cared but little for fashion. wore the same old broad-brimmed hat, and scorned the suppliant folds of a neck-tie. He had the same old home-made over-coat, that had been colored with butter-nut bark ten years before he was proprietor of Mudfog. Said overcoat was long enough in the skirt for a full display of Jewish phylacteries, for it reached within three inches of the ankle-bone. What was made up in the skirt was, however, lost in the waist, for the buttons behind were very close to the shoulder-blade. He derided the idea of hoops, yet his pantaloons would have made two goodsized mill-sacks. He never carried a watch, for he said he had learned in the mountains of Virginia how to tell the time of the day by the sunsomething which could seldom be learned in Mudfog. He used a piece of cow's-horn for an inkstand, and wrote with a goose-quill. His library consisted of one old family Bible, a hymn-book, bruised and mangled by many falls;

"The Statutes of Illinois," "Every Man his own Lawyer," an almanac, and “Daboll's Arithmetic." Newspapers he borrowed from the shops and stores of his neighbors.

Aunt Lucy Leedum, Uncle Shobek's wife, was nearly a fac-simile of himself. She wore the same friendly-looking sun-bonnet the year round. Saturday and Sunday, at home or abroad, in the church or in the kitchen, Aunt Lucy had on the same sun-bonnet. She called her husband "old man," smoked home-made tobacco, went barefooted in the summer-at home-milked her own cows, spun her own yarn, washed her own clothes, and said she was "powerful fond of pork and beans." She worked all day and knit all night, except when asleep. She talked but little, except by way of correcting the "old man," or some of the children. She submitted with many ejaculations of indignation to what she called the "cravin' desire of the girls for the furbelows and fooleries of fashion." She said, "I had to git 'em hoops, flowered bonnets and ribbons, or have no peace of my life."

There was one boy who had grown to the size of a man. He was almost an exact image of Uncle Shobek, excepting that he wore more hair, was not quite so stoop-shouldered, nor had he so many of the furrowed lines or silver threads of time, and withal was somewhat more fashionable | in attire. But his mind was of the same cast, and his inclinations bent in the same direction. The "old man" had trained William to be as saving, cautious, and craving as he. The great majority of catechetical instruction which William had received from his father amounted to about this:

Question.-What is the chief end of man? Answer. To keep what he's got, and get what he can.

The other children of the Leedum family were Jonas, Jerusha, Solon, and Samantha, whose ages ranged from ten to nineteen.

In the year 18-, in the month of March, Rev. Jonathan Molers had an appointment seven miles from Mudfog, and it was regarded as a matter of considerable importance that he should fulfill his engagement. He was a stranger in Mudfog and all the region round about. It was the muddiest time of a very muddy season. The land fairly groaned by reason of the mud. The clouds wept over the desolations of mud, and it only made it muddier. Jonathan had rode in the mud, and walked in the mud, and stuck in the mud, and had fountains of mud squirted and splashed all over his person, trying his patience, defiling his garments, marring his vision, and disfiguring his countenance. Mud was monarch of all he surveyed, and had imposed a grievous