NELSE HATTON'S VENGEANCE
the sentences in the Evening News—his reading was a post-bellum accomplishment—when the oldest of his three children, Theodore, a boy of twelve, interrupted him with the intelligence that there was an "old straggler at the back door."
After admonishing the hope of his years as to the impropriety of applying such a term to an unfortunate, the father rose and sought the place where the "straggler" awaited him.
Nelse's sympathetic heart throbbed with pity at the sight that met his eye. The "straggler," a "thing of shreds and patches," was a man about his own age, nearing fifty; but what a contrast he was to the well-preserved, well-clothed black man! His gray hair straggled carelessly about his sunken temples, and the face beneath it was thin and emaciated. The hands that pulled at the fringe of the ragged coat were small and bony. But both the face and the hands were clean, and there was an open look in the bold, dark eye.
In strong contrast, too, with his appearance was the firm, well-modulated voice, somewhat roughened by exposure, in which he said, "I am very hungry; will you give me something
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