song. The others joined
him, filling the house with the jubilee of their wild and mellow voices.

"A poor wayfaring man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
And sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay."

And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from
blight. The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of
Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams's
hut. He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the
low-roofed garret. His steaming clothes had been taken off, a dry shirt
had been given him, and he had Joe for a bedfellow.

"Hug him tight, Joey dear!" said the old woman, as she carried away the
candle. "Snug up close, and keep him warm!"

"I will!" cried Joe, as affectionate as he was roguish; and Fessenden's
never slept better than he did that night, with the tempest singing his
lullaby, and the arms of the loving negro boy about him.

In the morning he found his clothes ready to put on. They had been
carefully dried; and the old woman had got up early and taken a few
needful stitches in them.

"It's Sunday, granny," Creshy reminded her, to see what she would say.

"A'n't no use lett'n' sich holes as these 'ere go, if 't is Sunday!"
replied the old woman. "Hope I never sh'll ketch you a doin' nuffin'
wus! A'n't we told to help our neighbor's sheep out o' the ditch on the
Lord's day? An' which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, the
neighbor's sheep, or the neighbor hisself?"

"But his clothes a'n't him," said Creshy.

"S'pose I do'no' that? But what's a sheep for, if 't a'n't for its wool
to make the clo'es? Then, to look arter the sheep that makes the clo'es,
and not look arter the clo'es arter they're made, that's a mis'ble
notion!"

"But you can mend the clothes any day."

"Could I mend 'em yis'day, when I didn't have 'em to mend? or las'
night, when they was wringin' wet? Le' me alone, now, with your
nonsense!"

"But you can mend them to-morrow," said the mischievous girl, delighted
to puzzle her grandmother.

"And let that poor lorn chile go in rags over Sunday, freezin' cold
weather like this? Guess I a'n't so onfeelin,'--an' you a'n't nuther,
for all you like to tease your ole granny so! Bless the chile, seems to
me he's jest gwine to bring us good luck. I feel as though the Angel of
the Lord did ra'ly come into the house with him las' night! Wish I had
somefin' ra'l good for