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AUTUMN. Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er rusher stores than gems of gold; Once more with harvest song and shout Is Nature's bloodless triumph told. Our common mother rests and sings, Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves : Her lap is full of goodly things, Her brow is bright with Autumn leaves. O favors every year made new 1 O gifts with rain and sunshine sent! The bounty The fullness shames our discon tent. We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on; We choose the shadow, but the sun That casts it shines behind us still. — Whittier. ' due. run A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE "And you sail to-morrow, Will V I shall miss you." "Yes; I'm bound to see the world. Pve been beating my wings in despera tion against the wires of my cage these three years. I know every stick, and stone, and stump in this odious village by heart, as well as I do those stereo typed sermons of Parson Grey's. They say ho calls me 'a scapegrace'—pity I should have the name without the game," said he, bitterly. "I have'n't room here to run the length of my chain. I'll show him what I can do in a wider field of action." "But how did you bring your father ?" "Oh, he's very clad to be rid of me ; quhe disgusted because I've no fancy for seeing corn and oats grow. The truth is, every father knows at once too much and too little about his own son ; the old gentlenii me; he soured my temper, which is originally none of the best, aroused all the worst feelings in my nature, and is constantly driving me from instead of to the point he would have me reach. " "And your mother V" "Well, there you have me ; that's the only humanized portion of my heart— the only soft spot in it. She came to mybed-8ide last night, after she thought I was asleep, gently kissed my forehead, and then knelt by my bed-side. Harry, I've been wandering round the fields all the morning, to try to get rid of that prayer. Old Parson Grey might preach till the millennium, and he any more than that stone. It makes all the difference in the world when you know a person feels what they are praying about. I'm wild and reckless and wicked, I suppose : but I shall never be an infidel while I can remember my mother. Y ou should see the way she bears my father's im petuous temper ; that's (/race, not na ture, Harry ; but don't let us talk about it—I only wish my parting with her was well over. Good-bye; God bless you, Harry ; you'll hear from me, if the fishes don't make a supper of me ;" and Will left his friend and entered the cot tage. Will's mother was moving nervously and restlessly about, tying up all sorts of mysterious little parcels that only mothers think of, "in case of sickness," or in case he should be this,that, or the other, interrupted occasionally by ex clamations like this from the old farm never understood wouldn't move er: "Fudge—stuff—great overgrown baby—making a fool of him—never be out of leading strings and then turn, ing short about and facing Will as he entered, he said • "Well, sir, look in your sea-chest, and you'll find ginger-bread and physic, darning needles and tracts, 'bitters' and Bibles, peppermint ai d old linen rags, and opodeldoc. Pshaw ! I was more of a man than you are when I was nine years old. Your mother always made a fool of you, and that was en tirely unnecessary, too, for you were always short of what is called common sense. You needn't tell the captain you went to sea because you didn't know enough to be a landsman ; or that you never did anything right in your life, except by accident. You are as like that ne'er do well Jack Halpine as two peas. If there is anything in you, I hope the salt water will fetch it out. Come, your mother has your supper ready, I see.'* Mrs. Low's hand trembled as she passed her boy's cup. It was bis last meal under that roof for many a long day. She did not trust herself to speak—her heart was too full. She heard all his father so injudiciously said to him, and she knew too well from former experience the effect it w'ould have upon his impetuous, fiery spirit. She had only to oppose to it a mother's prayer, and tears, and all-en during love. She never condemned in Will's hearing* any of his father's philippics ; always excusing him with the general remark that ho didn't un derstand him. Alone , she mourned over it; and when with her husband, tried to place matters on a better foot ing for both parties. Will noted his mother's swollen eye lids ; he saw his favorite 1 ttle tea cakes that she had busied herself in preparing for him, and he ate and drank what she gave him, without tasting a morsel he 'swallowed, listening for the hundredth time to his father's account of "what he did when he was a young man." "Just half an hour, Will," said his up and father, "before you start ; see if you have forgotten any of your duds." It was the little room he had always called his own. How many nights he had lain there listening to the rain pat tering on the low roof; how many mornings awakened by the chirp of the robin in the apple-tree under the win dow. There was the little bed with its snowy covering, and the thousand and one little comforts prepared by his mother's hand. lie turned his head— ' she was at his side, her arms about his neck. "God keep my boy!" was all she could utter. He knelt at her feet as in the days of childhood, and from those wayward lips came this tearful prayer: "Oh God, spare my mother that I may look upon her face again in this world ! " Oh, in after days, when that voice had died out from under the parental roof, how sacred was that spot to her who gave him birth ! There was hope for the hoy! he had recognized his mother's God. By that invisible silken cord she still held the wanderer, though broad seas roll between. Letters came to Moss Glen—at stated intervals, then more irregularly, pictur ing only the bright spots in his sailor life (for Will was proud, and they were to be scanned by his father's eye ) The usual temptations of a sailor's life when in port were not unknown to him. Of every cup the syren Pleasure held to his lips, he drank to the dregs ; but there were moments in his maddest revels, when that angel»whisper, ' God keep my boy," palsied his daring hand, and arrested the luilf-uttered oath. Disgusted with himself, he would turn aside for an instant, but only to drown again more recklessly "that still small torturing voice." "You're a stranger in these parts," said a rough farmer to a sun-burnt traveller "Look as though you'd been in foreign parts." "Do I ?" said Will, slouching his hat over his eyes. "Who lives in that little cottage under the hill ?" "Old Farmer Low—and a tough cus tomer he is, too ; it's a word and a blow with him. The old lady has had a hard time of it, good as she is, to put up with all his kinks and quirks. She bore it very well till the lad went away ; and then she began to droop like a willow in a storm, and lose all heart, like. Doctor's stuff didn't do any good, as long as she got no news of the boy. She's to be buried this atternoou, sir." Poor Will staid to hear no more, but tottered in the direction of the cottage. He asked no leave to enter, but passed over the threshold into the little "best parlor," and found himself alone with the dead. It was too true ! Dumb were the lips that should have wel comed him ; and the arms that should have enfolded him were crossed peaee lully over the heart that beat true to him till the last. Conscience did its office. Long years of mad folly passed in swift review be fore him ; and that insensible form •as made, and registered in a vow v Heaven. "Your mother should, have lived to see this day," said a gray-haired old , as he leaned on the arm of the clergyman, and passed into the village church. "BlessGod, my dear father, there is 'joy in Heaven over penteth;' and of all the angel baud, there is one seraph hand that sweeps more rapturously its harp to-day for 'the lost that is found." sinner that re The more freely sympathy and affection is extended, and the more gladly they are welcomed, the more they bless mankind. Their very life depends upon a generous atmosphere of both giving and taking. Cold ness, reserve, suspicion, pride, kill them as the biting frost kills the lei der plant. We never regret the kind words we have spoken, nor the retorts we have left unsaid ; but bitterly do we recall sharp words spoken angrily', and unkind actions that may have caused tears to come to the eyes that will never shed them more. One reason why we meet with few people who are reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any person who does not think more of what he has to say, than of answering what is said to him. By imagination a man in a dünge« is capable of entertaining himself with scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature. AFRICAN AMERICANISMS. [This column will be devoted to the interest of the colored race, and is edited by a representative of that people.] To-morrow will be good-tidings day at Ezion, for which an interest ing programme has been prepared. The Bruce Association has added another fine picture to their already large collection, entitled "The Col ored Chieftain." Wright & Jones's Quartette will give a grand prize doncert at Sale m on Wednesday night next, and at Dover the following night. The best element of the colored citizens will vote the Temperance Reform ticket the coming election and thus help to free the whole State from political slavery. There will be a grand rally at Bethel A. M. E. Church to-mon The Rev. D. P. Seaton, of Baltimore, will preach at 10.30 a. m.; the Rev. J. W. Beckett, of Philadelphia, at 3.30 p. m., and the Rev. R. F. Way man, of Baltimore, at 7.30 p. m. I went on the excursion to Charleston on Thursday evening at Ezion M. E. Church, and words are inadequate to express my delight thereat. The wonderfully realistic scenes of the great earthquake were exhibited by the Rev. II. A.Monroe, and explained by Mr. James II. Mor gan. The new lime-light stereopti ean was used for the second time, and the views were so beautifully "agnified on a large canvass that I often imagined myself walking the streets of the devastated city. I can say without hesitation that it was the finest exhibition of the kind I ever attended. James Harding, the 'reliant tailor of No. 81(1 French street, is one of Wilmington's successful busi ness men. He is a native of this city, having been born here July 10, 1820. He learned his trade with Robert G raves, then at No. 233 Mar ket street, when about 20 years of ago, 1870, afterward moving to his pres ent location in answer to the calls of seceding his employer in a growing business. His best cus tomers are leading white citizens. No colored man is more respected among his people, nor does any other more richly deserve the sue cess that has followed his years of toil. Affable manners and superior knowledge of his business are among the causes of his rise. I have no doubt that there are. many other young men among us who can in the same way become an honor to them selves, their race, their city and their country. The facts are, the colored race has been making enormous strides in the way of money getting during the past ten years. Why, in the city' of Washington to-day, a city in which the Emancipation Proclama tion of twenty-three years ago found less than a dozen free blacks there are 104 colored men who pay taxes on above $25,000. The author of the standard history of the African race in America is worth $40,000. Hon. Frederick Douglass lias $300, 000. Boston has a colored merchant tailor who clothes the Beacon nill aristocracy, and does a business of $350,000 a year. He wits once a slave and followed Sherman and his troops on their march to the sea. When he reached Charleston his worldly possessions were a suit of very ragged clothes and 28 cents. The present tax collector of the District of Columbia, nitnself a col ored man, pays taxes on $250,000. New York had a colored druggist who dic'd recently' leaving $1,000, 000, and a son-in-law worth $150,000. The ex-United States Minister to Hayti has $75,000. Less than 100 colored men in Pittsburg pay taxes on a combined property valuation of $2,500,000. Cincinnati has a colored furniture -'hose check is good any day Twenty-three years The ned more than a score of four story residences at the time of his death. One day he entered a Cincinnati bank and asked for government bonds. The cashier did not know him, and when he handed out his check for $15,000 he appealed to the president of the bank. "Get him the bonds,"said the latter; "he can draw his check for ten times that sum." Buffalo has 0, New Orleans-, 48; Philadelphia, 04; Chicago, 22; Louisville, 8; Charles ton, 12, Atlanta, 4, and Pittsburg colored men who pay taxes on more than $10,000 each and never think of attending the sittings of the court of tax appeals. Up to the failure of the Freedmen's Savings Bank the colored people of the South had deposited therein $35, 000.000. This sum is in addition to I dealer for $ 100 , 000 . ago he was a Kentucky slave, late Robert Gordon the amounts deposited by them in other banking institutions, colored residents of New York city are assessed for over $0,000,000. Colored men own property on Long Island to the value of $2,500,000. In South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi the colored people are buying for themselves small farms, and what is better, they are paying for them. HOUSEWIFE'S FRIEND. To Makk Hard Water Soft.— Dissolve one pound of white rock potash in one gallon of water, and then use half a gill of the preparation to a tub of water. To Take Out Scorch. —Lay the article scorched where the bright sunshine will fall upon it. It will remove the spot and leave it white as snow. Mildew may be removed by dip ping in sour butter-milk and laying in the sun. Cold rain-water and soap will re move machine grease from washable fabrics. To Preserve Clothes Pins.— Clothes pins boiled a few moments and quickly dried, once or twice a month, become more flexible and durable. Clothes lines will last longer and keep in better order if occasionally treated in the same way. To Polish Tins _First rub them with a damp cloth ; then take dry flour and rub it on with the hands ; afterward take an old newspaper and rub the flour off, and the tins will shine as well as if half an hour had been spent rubbing them with brick-dust or powder, which spoils the hands. Rubhino with paper is the better way of polishing knives, forks, mir rors, windows, lamp-globes, spoons, etc. They shine like silver. To remove grease from silk apply a little magnesia to the wrong side, and spots will disappear. To Clean Furs. —Shake and whip them well ; then brush ; boil some flaxseed ; dip a rag in the water and wipe them slightly. This makes them appear nearly as good as new. Ribbons of every kind should be washed in cold suds and not rinsed. Washing Kid Gloves. —First, that your hands are clean, then put on your gloves and wash them as though you were washing yonr hands, in a basin of spirits of tur pentine. This method is used in Paris. The gloves should be hung in the air, or some dry place, to carry away the smell of turpentine. A new iron should be gradually heated at first. After it has become inured to the heat it is not so likely to crack. Glass will have a brighter and clearer look when cleansed with cold water than with warm water. To Clean Wall Paper. —Tie a soft cloth over a broom, and sweep down the walls carefully. Here's Where You Smile, The ballot is the lever that must save this country or that will bury it beneath a mountain of despotism. I — The Craftsman. A cross old bachelor suggests that births should be announced under the head of new music. The stories of the exquisite in stinct of brute creation were rather knocked in the head recently in Iowa where a ferocious bull-dog bit a man in the calf of his wooden leg. A Hoboken mail thrust his fingers into a horse's mouth to many teeth it liad, and the horse closed its mouth to see how many fingers the man had. The curiosity of each was satisfied. iC liow *, being a guest of her grandma, had been liberally feasted, when a second dish of pud ding came on. Looking at the steaming disli she exclaimed, with a sigh, "Gran'ma, I wish I was twins." The little A man may have his head so stuffed with knowledge that his hair can't grow, and yet have his feet knocked clear out from under him a little idea by a question or two IV midget too small to know from a gooseberry. A fashion writer says that dresse s are to be full this season. We prefer them full. The idea of a dress empty is ridiculous in the extreme. We should like to know what satisfac tion it would be to a young man to hold an empty dress on his lap. Mrs. Bullion to the principal of the school attended by her daughter: "Dear Madam—My daughter, Clar ice, informs me that last year she was obliged to study vulgar frac tious. Please do not let this happen again. If the dear child must study let them be as refined as •t possible." 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