: Three People by Pansy - Christian life Juvenile fiction; Social classes Juvenile fiction; Temperance Juvenile fiction; Clergy Juvenile fiction

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of the other; but no matter for that, they were brothers, linked together in many a way.

Perhaps you wouldn't have had an idea that their fathers were each occupied in the same business; but such was the case. Pliny L. Hastings, the millionaire, owned and kept in motion two of the hotels in a western city where the bar-rooms were supplied with marble counters, and the customers were served from cut-glass goblets, resting on silver salvers. Besides he was a wholesale liquor dealer, and kept great warehouses constantly supplied with the precious stuff. Bennie Phillips' good-natured father was a grocer, on a modest and unpretending scale; but he had a back room in his store where he kept a few barrels of liquor for medicinal purposes, and a clerk in attendance. Tode Mall's father kept an unmitigated grog-shop, or rum hole, or whatever name you are pleased to call it, without any cut glass or medicinal purposes about it, and sold vile whisky at so much a drink to whoever had sunk low enough to buy it. So now you know all about how these three baby brothers commenced their lives.

JOHN BIRGE'S OPPORTUNITY.

One day it rained--oh, terribly. Albany is not a pleasant city when it rains, and Rensselaer Street is not a pleasant street. That was what John Birge thought as he held his umbrella low to avoid the slanting drops, and hurried himself down the muddy road, hurried until he came to a cellar stairs, and then he stopped short in the midst of rain and wind, such a pitiable sight met his eye, the figure of a human being, fallen down on that lowest stair in all the abandonment of drunkenness.

"This is awful!" muttered John Birge to himself. "I wonder if the poor wretch lives here, and if I can't get him in."

Wondering which, he hurried down the stairs, made his way carefully past the "poor wretch" and knocked at the door. No answer. He knocked louder, and this time a low "come in" rewarded him, and he promptly obeyed it. A woman was bending over a pile of straw and rags, and an object lying on top of them; and a squalid child, curled in one corner, with a wild, frightened look in his eyes. The woman turned as the door opened, and John Birge recognized her as his mother's washerwoman.

"Oh, Mr. Birge," she said, eagerly, "I'm too thankful for anything at seeing you. This woman is going so fast, she is; and what to do I don't know."

Mr. Birge set down his umbrella and shook himself free of what drops he could before he approached the straw and rags; then he saw that a woman lay on them, and on her face the purple shadows of death were gathering.

"What is it?" he asked, awe-struck. "What is the matter?"

"Clear case of murder, I call it. Her man is a drunkard, and a fiend, too, leastways when he's drunk he is--and he's pitched her down them there stairs once too often, I reckon. I was goin' to my work early this morning, and I heard her groaning, so I come in, and I just staid on ever since. Feelings is feelings, if a body does have to lose a day's work to pay for 'em. She lies like that for a spell, and then she rouses up and has an awful turn."

"Turn of what? Is she in pain?"

"No, I reckon not; it's her mind. She knows she's going, and it makes her wild, like. Maybe you can talk to her some, and do her good--there, she sees you!"

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