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The next Friday evening found all the members of the Cellar-door Club in their places. Will Sampson, the stammering “chairman,” was at the top, full of life and fun as ever. Jimmie Jackson, running over with mischief, was by him, then came Tom Miller and John Harlan, while Hans Schlegel and Harry Wilson sat at the bottom. After a half-hour spent in general talk about school and plays, and such miscellaneous topics as every gathering of boys knows how to discuss, the “chairman” called out,

“Come t-to order! Th-th-the C-cellar-d-d-door Society is c-called to order. G-g-gentlemen, the Hon. J-Jeems Jackson is the speaker f-for the evening. I h-have the pl-pleasure of introducing him to you.”

“No, you don’t!” said the shoemaker’s son; “don’t put it on so thick. If you want me to tell my yarn along with the rest of you, why, I’m ready, but if you call it a speech, you scare me out of my shoes, just like the man that tried to make a speech in the legislature, but couldn’t get any farther than ‘Mr. Speaker, I am in favor of cartwheels and temperance.’ Or, like a boy I knew, who tried to declaim the speech beginning: ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!’ and who got so badly confused on the first line that he said, ‘I’d like to borrow your ears!'”

This raised a laugh at the expense of Harry Wilson, who had broken down on that line, though he did not make it as bad as Jimmy represented it.

“G-g-go on with your story!” stammered the chairman, and Jackson proceeded.

JIMMY JACKSON’S STORY.

There lived in a country a long way off–it don’t matter where–a poor wood-chopper whose name was–let’s see–well, we will call him Bertram. It wasn’t the fashion to have two names in those days, you know; people couldn’t afford it. He had a son, whose name was Rudolph, and a daughter, Theresa. The boy was twelve and the girl was eleven years old. The wood-chopper earned but a scanty subsistence–that means an awfully poor living, I believe–and the children soon learned to help him. Rudolph and Theresa were hard-working and cheerful, and as they had never been rich, they did not know what it was to be poor. That is, they thought they had plenty, because they never had any more; and had no time to sit down and see how nice it would be to have a fine house, and be drawn in an elegant carriage. But one day a tree fell on poor Bertram, and he was carried home with a broken arm and leg. I suppose if he had been rich enough to send for a great surgeon that lived in the city, only two leagues away, he would have recovered without much trouble, but poor men have to do without such attentions, and so Bertram’s arm and leg, which were fixed by a country “bone-setter,” were so crooked that he could not work. And now the burden fell heavily on the wife, who had to gather berries and nuts in the forests, which she loaded on the donkey, and carried away to the city to sell. But the poor woman was never very strong, and this extra tax was fast breaking her down.

The children did what they could, but it was not much. After working hard all day, they amused themselves in the evening by manufacturing little articles out of nutshells. Rudolph had a sharp knife which had been given him for showing a gentleman the way out of the forest. But the circumstances of the family had become so distressing that they had given up their evening employments, creeping sadly away to bed after a frugal supper.

One day, as they were gathering nuts in the forest, Rudolph said, “Sister, I fear that mother is breaking down. What can we do to help her? The winter is coming on, and times will be harder than ever.”