THE POOR WOODCUTTER. | 25

 

for the poor woodcutter clothed itself,
spontaneously, in generous thoughts.

At length the work was done. Mr. Ed-
gar heard the man’s slow, heavy tread, as
he ascended the cellar-stairs. Now came
the struggle between humanity and the
poor feeling from which he had suffered all
day. More than a dozen times, before the
servant came in and said that the wood-
cutter had. finished his work, did he alter
his mind. Now he had seventy-five cents
in his fingers, and now fifty. .

“ Half-a-dollar is enough—it is all he
asked,” he would say, as he commenced
drawing his hand from his pocket with only
the single coin in his fingers. ‘But he is
poor, and has worked very hard. A quar-
ter of a dollar is a little matter to you, but
much to him,” would cause the hand to
dive down again into the pocket, and take
up an additional twenty-five cent piece.
But from the other side would come a
word, and then only the halfdollar re-
mained.