him; and when the door was shut, I strugged frantically to open it, and sobbed bitterly, notwithstanding the repeated calls of those present for silence. After the lapse of a few minutes, I was put into a carriage, and, accompanied by both, driven to the private door of a cheerless stone building, situated within a mile of Boston Common, where one Mrs. Bangs filled the position of housekeeper, and her son Robert that of librarian.

Here you are to live,' said one of the two men to me, and Mrs. Bangs will take good care of you.'

'I shall never be able to do any thing with him if he cries in that way,' said she, and I was exhorted to hold my peace by repeated hushes, and threats of punishment. I cried piteously to be taken back to the cottage from which I had come, but cried in vain.

Mrs. Bangs was a widow of about fifty-five years, with a small, thin, wiry frame, a pale complexion, restless, gray eyes, and short corkscrew ringlets, of nearly the same color. Her nose was sharp and pointed, like the beak of a bird, and she had a thin, firm lip, out of which I regretted to learn a favorite parrot had once been treacherous enough to bite a piece, that indicated to some extent a temper which had driven from her all of her five sons, but this the youngest, and made her prudently avoided by all who knew her.

I did not take to her kindly at first sight; and when the two men who had conducted me to her were about to leave, I jumped from the chair where I had been sitting, and clung to them in dread of being left in such a gloomy place, with such a cold, unsympathizing woman. Intuition told me that I could never like her, nor she me. Age had blunted her feelings, and like most old people she had no love of children. I followed the men to the door, but I was thrust back; the door closed, and I was left alone with the old widow and her gon. He was a tall, pale, thin, sanctimonious-looking young man, of about

twenty-six, dressed in faded black, with a neck-cloth of the same color wound twice around his throat, and he had the manner and appearance of a student. I felt his presence soothing, but was still unwilling to remain where I was, and I burst into tears at intervals, and cried for them to open the door. I was as disconsolate as a dog after losing his master, as frightened as a field-lark when first caged.

'Now, come, come; I'll put you to bed right away, if you make any more of that noise,' said Mrs. Bangs sternly.

For the moment I was awed into silence, but the next my grief grew louder than before. I was therefore taken upstairs to a room, over the kitchen, and commanded to undress, and get into bed, which I did, when Mrs. Bangs left me to my own reflections, with the parting admonition not to stir out of that till morning. It was only sun-set, but, thank Heaven, I sobbed myself to sleep. Morning came, and I was aroused early by the voice of Mrs. Bangs, saying, 'Come, get up,' simultaneously with which she pulled the bed-clothes off me, and then marched out of the room to complete a toilet evidently unfinished.

In a few minutes she returned, saying peremptorily, 'Are you ready? Come down-stairs; I want to show you how to make the fire.'

I was only half-dressed, but I followed her mechanically to the kitchen, where, after opening the shutter of the solitary window, which looked into a narrow, blind yard, with high, dead walls on either side, she commenced the work of making a fire, and instructing me as to the arrangement of paper, chips, and coals, and the application of the match.

'Now,' she said, after the fire began to crackle in the grate, 'go and clean Mr. Bangs' boots. Take them out into the yard; and here's the blacking and brushes.'

I obeyed, but sullenly.

'No sulking now,' she spoke, 'you're to do every thing I bid you, without

Stop!' said she. 'Is your name Bangs?'

'Washington!' she exclaimed, raising her hands; what a big name for such a little boy.'

I was immediately indignant at being called little, and showed it by a defiant look and a frown, telling her at the same time that I was not little.

'Well, what's your other name, my dear?' she continued inquisitively.

'I do n't know.'

'Why, where did you come from not to know your name?'

'I came from Kate Wilkins's.' The woman's eyes beamed with surprise. Why, are you the little boy that was found in the carpet-bag?'

I felt humbled, and colored. I had heard about that carpet-bag before, and I felt that it was not a proper place for me to have been found in, although I was in blissful ignorance of the stain supposed to attach to my birth in consequence, for I knew nothing about the law of multiplication or the institution of marriage, merely entertaining a vague idea that the incident of the carpet-bag had been preceded by my original discovery in a parsley-bed or bower of roses, from which I was transmitted, after the manner of all babies, in a bandbox, to that mysterious personage, my mother. But who was she? Alas! I was unconscious of having ever known her love.

6 Are you the little boy from Green?' 'Yes,' I answered, surprised at her knowing any thing whatever about me. 'I've a sister that knows you,' she said.

lowing up her command with a kick, and she drove me before her like a dog. 'How dare you stop here talking, when I told you to come straight back and finish cleaning those candle-sticks?'

'It was my fault,' said the woman, coming to the rescue.

'Well, I've got to teach him obedience, and I won't allow him to chitchat with you or any one else.'

I returned sobbing to the kitchen. Come, come! if you do n't stop crying I'll wring your young neck for you,' threatened my persecutor. 'I'll make you smart, I can tell you.'

After this I received strict injunctions never again to speak to the woman who cleaned the building, and she was requested to mind her own business.

The time for closing the library was eight o'clock in winter and nine in summer, but meetings occurred on an average four times a week, which kept the building open till about eleven. The working-day was therefore always long.

After breakfast Mr. Bangs invariably took his way to the library, which was opened to members at half-past nine. There he sat in front of a large table, attending to his duties as librarian, and rising to open the door whenever the bell was rung, unless I was there to do it for him, or a member at the other end of the room asked for a book. To them he was a standing volume of reference, for, knowing every book in the library, he could produce all the authorities on any given subject within the range of medical science. He was a walking catalogue, and as useful as an encyclopedia

'Mrs. Mills. Don't you know herthe school-teacher?'

'Yes, I think I do,' I replied. Further conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mrs. Bangs, who

tion. The life or death of many a patient depended upon the books he gave them, for according to those they pursued their treatment, and as one man's food is, in medicine, another's poison, they lived or died by accident, for, unfortunately it

frequently happens that the writers of medical books are no wiser than those who accept them as their guides.

It was the business of Mr. Bangs to address the printed circulars calling meetings of the members; and it was also his business to post them, charging the institution with the amount of postage. But, in order to divert the latter to his own advantage, it was his habit to deliver, with the assistance of his mother, all those within the city of Boston. Mother and son were equally active in going from house to house, leaving these periodical announcements for the moderate sum which would other wise have been paid to the post-office.

I had not been long in the cheerless stone building, before I was called upon to serve an apprenticeship in this lettercarrying business.

'Put on your cap and come with me;' said Mrs. Bangs, one morning, at about nine; and she led me all over Boston, giving me a circular to hand in whenever she came to the house of a member, and allowing me to overtake her after doing it, and calling me a fiend, and threatening to flog me within an inch of my life if I kept her waiting. In this way I soon became acquainted with the city and the residences of the members, and after that I was sent out regularly to deliver circulars, as well as to leave and receive books. I became, in other words, the established errandboy of the concern, without salary, always receiving more kicks than pence for my pains.

Mrs. Bangs contracted for the supply of coffee and cakes at some of the meetings, at twenty-five cents a head to those who partook of the refreshments. It was my business to carry in the tray containing cups and saucers, and otherwise make myself generally useful as a waiter; but Mr. Bangs usually carried in the coffee-pot, which his mother frequently brought to the door stealthily, and then on seeing him, berated him severely for not coming to the kitchen for it. He would on such occasions en

deavor to silence her by a prolonged 'Hush!' but her tongue would continue wagging till he entered the room and closed the door behind him. Meanwhile she would retire towards the kitchen bewailing her condition in something like the following language:

'Here I'm toiling and slaving from morning till night — morning till night, wearing my body out by inches; provoked all day long by a foolish son and that wretch of a boy, and what do I get for it all? I'll not do it any longer. I'll not pinch myself as I have done; I'm sick and tired of it. Here I've not spent half a dollar on my back for years, but have gone on patching and mending till I'm thoroughly worn out, and can hardly see out of my eyes.' 'Why do n't you wear spectacles?' says Rob. 'Yes, it's all very well to talk, but where's the money to come from? How are we to find the money to pay the calls on his railway shares- I wish they were at the bottom of the sea — and to pay for his lectures only by saving every little thing?'

On returning to the kitchen, she invariably vented her indignation upon me if I happened to be there, and threatened to turn me into the street if I ever vexed her again.

With the lapse of time she proved herself a vixen of the most unmitigated character, and I was the special object of her wrath. She was a woman of no natural or acquired refinement, and she had no more mercy than a blood-hound. Yet she always strengthened her arguments and intensified her denunciations with quotations from the Bible, and was alike with her son a regular attendant at a Methodist Church, where she had paid pew-rent for many years. At love-feasts, too, she was seldom absent, and occasionally she presented herself at a classmeeting, of which she was a member, and whenever her conscience permitted she received the holy sacrament. But where her Christian virtues lay, I could never discover. At her hands I suffered perpetual martyrdom. She had a natu

ral inclination to inflict corporal punishment, and she lost no opportunity of gratifying it at my expense. 'Spare the rod and spoil the child,' was one of her favorite quotations, always accompanied by a blow or a kick, an application of the birch-rod or a by no means gentle pulling of the ears. I have a distinct recollection of having been frequently knocked down by her with the assistance of a broom-stick, and then of her manifesting a sort of fiendish delight in crushing me under her feet. She always kept a rod, or a cane, or both, (which she charged for as extras in my board-bill,) suspended in one corner of the room, which answered the double purpose of kitchen and dining-room, and where I acted in the capacity of boy of all work when not engaged in the building, by which I mean that portion of it distinct from the house, as the rooms occupied by the Bangs were called.

I had a hard life, indeed, with Mrs. Bangs, for in addition to the duties I have already named, I was often called upon to assist in the washing of dishes and the peeling of potatoes. I had, moreover, to clean the windows of the house and make my own bed; while, as the custom of the Bangs' was too insignificant for any tradesman to feel it worth his while to send a man for orders, I had all the shopping to do. I had to carry home the meal, hominy or oat-meal for making my own breakfast, and the flour for making bread, for Mrs. Bangs considered it more economical to make her own than to buy it ready-made, and I had to carry the kneaded dough to a bake-house afterwards and bring back a tally by way of receipt. I had to go to the butcher's and the corner grocerystore and perform similar drudgery, and all because it was my misfortune to have been put to board with Mrs. Bangs. It was a cruel fate, and I often wept over my condition. But I was helpless. I supplicated to be allowed to go back to Kate Wilkins, but Mrs. Bangs swore that if I ever spoke on the subject again she would be the death of me. 'Yes,'

said she, ‘a b-d like you would look well going back there. Let me hear you talk of that again.'

The Bangs' had no visitors, beyond a very few relatives who came to see them only at long intervals, and a ring of the bell at the private-door always created a sensation when no one was expected. It was a bell seldom rung, save by one of the three regular inmates of that cheerless building. By myself it was always pulled with extreme gentleness to prevent its striking more than once; by Mrs. Bangs it was invariably pulled quickly and with violence, and pulled again if by any chance I was not on the spot to open it promptly; by the librarian himself it was pulled timidly, so as to produce a feeble, uncertain sound in the kitchen where it hung, for Mrs. Bangs flew into a passion with any one who rang it loudly. Frequently, indeed, the librarian was afraid to ring it at all, and merely tapped at the door with his stick. He seldom had occasion to do either, but at night, for he went out regularly, unless on meeting nights,' after closing the library, and remained till eleven, and rarely a moment longer. His mother always sat up for him darning his clothes, and if he failed to return within the prescribed time, her wrath was great indeed.

lot

I had endured the miseries of my for about a year, when one day, about noon, the bell rang, and Mrs. Bangs said, 'Who can that be at this time of day?' and took her way into the little front-parlor which looked out upon the street, where she saw from the window by a slight twist of the neck, that a strange woman, in homely garments, was at the door. She would not allow me to go to the door because I had a black eye and a cut cheek, the result of a severe pummelling with a brushhandle on the previous day, but she opened it herself. Her foregone conclusion was, that the woman was a beggar, and to beggars she never gave, for, said she, they all come to thieve.' She therefore merely opened the door