e village of E., and it was there
I met with Terry Dolan. He had a short time previous come over from
Ireland, and was engaged as a sort of chore boy by Mr. L., in whose
family I resided during my stay in the neighborhood. This Terry was the
oddest being with whom I ever chanced to meet. Would that I could
describe him!--but most of us, I believe, occasionally meet with people,
whom we find to be indescribable, and Terry was one of those. He called
himself sixteen years of age; but, excepting that he was low of stature,
you would about as soon have taken him for sixty, as sixteen. His
countenance looked anything but youthful, and there was altogether a
sort of queer, ancient look about him which caused him to appear very
remarkable. When he first came to reside with Mr. L. the boys in the
neighborhood nicknamed him "The little Old Man," but they soon learned
by experience that their wisest plan was to place a safe distance
between Terry and themselves before applying that name to him, for the
implied taunt regarding his peculiar appearance enraged him beyond
measure. Whenever he entered the room, specially if he ventured a
remark--and no matter how serious you might have been a moment
before--the laugh would come, do your best to repress it. When I first
became an inmate with the family, I was too often inclined to laugh at
the oddities of Terry--and I believe a much graver person than I was at
that time would have done the same--but after a time, when I learned
something of his past life, I regarded him with a feeling of pity,
although to avoid laughing at him, at times, were next to impossible.

One evening in midsummer I found him seated alone upon the piazza, with
a most dejected countenance. Taking a seat by his side I enquired why he
looked so sad;--his eyes filled with tears as he replied--"its of ould
Ireland I'm thinkin' to-night, sure." I had never before seen Terry look
sober, and I felt a deep sympathy for the homesick boy. I asked him how
it happened that he left all his friends in Ireland and came to this
country alone. From his reply I learned that his mother died when he was
only ten years old, and, also, that his father soon after married a
second wife, who, to use Terry's own words, "bate him unmercifully."
"It's a wonder," said he, "that iver I lived to grow up, at all, at all,
wid all the batins I got from that cruel woman, and all the times she
sint me to bed widout iver a bite uv supper, bad luck to