The father looked down among the grass and shrubbery, and up into the top branches, and then into the cage-the countenance of the poor little girl growing more and more perplexed and more sorrowful every moment. "But father-dear father!" laying her little hand on the spring of the cage door, dear father! would you?" "And why not, my dear child?" and the father's eyes filled with tears, and he stooped down and "Well, father-what is it? does it see any kissed the bright face upturned to his, and glowing thing?" as if illuminated with inward sunshine. "No my love, nothing to frighten her; but where | not ?" is the father bird?" "He's in the other cage. He made such a to-do when the birds began to chipper this morning, that I was obliged to let him out; and brother Bobby, he frightened him into the cage and carried him off." "Was that right, my love ?" Why "I was only thinking, father, if I should let them out, who will feed them?" "Who feeds the young ravens, dear? Who feeds the ten thousand little birds that are flying about us now ?" True, father; but they have never been impriWhy not, father? He would'nt be quiet, you soned, you know, and have already learned to take know; and what was I to do ?" care of themselves." "But, Moggy, dear, these little birds may want their father to help to feed them; the poor mother bird may want him to take care of them, or sing to her? Or, perhaps, to show them how to fly, father?" Yes, dear. And to separate them just nowhow would you like to have me carried off, and put into another house, leaving nothing at home but your mother to watch over you and the rest of my little birds ?" The child grew more thoughtful. She looked up into her father's face, and appeared as if more than half disposed to ask a question, which might be a little out of place; but she forbore, and after musing a few moments, went back to the original subject: "But father, what can be the matter with the poor thing? you see how she keeps flying about, and the little ones trying to follow her, and tumbling upon their noses, and toddling about as if they were tipsy, and could'nt see straight." "I am afraid she is getting discontented." "Discontented! How can that be, father? Has'nt she her little ones about her, and every thing on earth she can wish, and then, you know, she never used to be so before." The father looked up and smiled. Worthy of profound consideration, my dear; I admit your plea; but have a care lest you overrate the danger and the difficulty, in your unwillingness to part with your beautiful little birds." "Father!" and the little hand pressed upon the spring, and the door flew open-wide open! "Stay, my child! What you do must be done thoughtfully, conscientiously, so that you may be satisfied with yourself, hereafter, and allow me to hear all your objections." "I was thinking, father, about the cold rains, and the long winters, and how the poor little birds that have been so long confined would never be able to find a place to sleep in, or water to wash in, or seeds for their little ones." "In our climate, my love, the winters are very short; and the rainy season itself does not drive the birds away; and then, you know, birds always fol. low the sun; if our climate is too cold for them, they have only to go farther south. But in a word, my love, you are to do as you would be done by. As you would not like to have me separated from your mother and you; as you would not like to be imprisoned for life, though your cage were crammed with loaf sugar and sponge cake-as you—" "That'll do father! that's enough! Brother Bobby hither Bobby! bring the little cage with you; there's a dear !" "When her mate was with her, perhaps." "Yes, father; and yet now I think of it, the moment these little witches began to peep-peep, and tumble about so funny, the father and mother began to fly about in the cage, as if they were crazy. What can be the reason? The water, you see, is cool and clear; the sand bright; they are out in the open air, with all the green leaves blowing about them; their cage has been scoured with soap and sand; the fountain filled; and the seed box-and-among the bright green leaves. The children clapand-I declare I cannot think what ails them." Brother Bobby sang out in reply; and after a moment or two of anxious inquiry, appeared at the window with a little cage. The prison doors were opened the father bird escaped; the mother bird immediately followed, with a cry of joy; and then came back and tolled her little ones forth ped their hands in an ecstacy, and the father fell upon their necks and kissed them; and the mother, who sat by, sobbed over them both for a a whole hour, as if her heart would break; and told her neighbors with tears in her eyes. "The ungrateful hussy! What! after all that we have done for her; giving her the best room that we could spare; feeding her from our own table; clothing her from our own wardrobe; giving her the handsomest and shrewdest fellow for a husband within twenty miles of us; allowing them to live together till a child is born; and now, because we have thought proper to send him away for a while, where he may earn his keep-now, forsooth! we are to find my lady discontented with her situation!" "Dear father!" "Hush, child!" "Ay, discontented-that's the word-actually dissatisfied with her condition! the jade! with the best of every thing to make her happy-comforts and luxuries she could never dream of obtaining if she were free to-morrow-and always contented; never presuming to be discontented till now." "And what does she complain of father?" "Why, my dear child, the unreasonable thing complains just because we have sent her husband away to the other plantation for a few months; he was idle here, and might have grown discontented, too, if we had not picked him off. And then, instead of being happier, and more thankful-more thankful to her heavenly Father, for the gift of a man child, Martha tells me that she found her crying over it, calling it a little slave, and wished the Lord would take it away from her-the ungrateful wench! when the death of that child would be two hundred dollars out of my pocket-every cent of it!" "After all we have done for her too!" sighed the mother. "I declare I have no patience with the jade!" continued the father. "Father-dear father!" "Be quiet, Moggy? don't teaze me now." "But, father!" and, as she spoke, the child ran up to her father and drew him to the window, and threw back her sun-shiny tresses, and looked up into his eyes with the face of an angel, and pointed to the cage as it still hung at the window, with the door wide open! The father understood her, and colored to the eyes; and then, as if half ashamed of the weakness, bent over and kissed her forehead-smoothed down her silky hair-and told her she was a child now, and must not talk about such matters till she had grown older. "Why not, father?" "Why not? Why bless your little heart! Suppose I were silly enough to open my doors and turn her adrift, with her child at her breast, what would become of her? Who would take care of her? who feed her?" "Who feeds the ravens, father? Who takes care of all the white mothers, and all the white babes we see?" "Yes, child-but then-I know what you are thinking of; but then-there's a mighty difference, let me tell you, between a slave mother and a white mother -between a slave child and a white child." Wearing no friend-like smile When thine heart is not within, Making no truce with fraud or guile, No compromise with sin. Open of eye and speech, Open of heart and hand, Holding thine own but as in trust For thy great brother-band. Patient and stout to bear, Yet bearing not for ever; Gentle to rule, and slow to bind, Like lightning to deliver! True to thy fatherland, True to thine own true love; For faith sincere as thine, Remembering Him who spake Where two or three in my name meet I bar thee not from faults- Since that primeval stain! The wisest have been fools The surest stumbled sore: Strive thou to stand-or fall'n arise, 1 ask the enot for more! This do, and thou shalt knit Closely my heart to thine; Next the dear love of God above, Such friend on earth, be mine! THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. World. The slaveholder dragging his languid frame from the rice-region and the sugar-plantation, full of contempt for the laborer, and bitter in his scorn of Yankee meanness, has been awed into reverence for Industry in the presence of the working-women of Lowell; and, painfully contrasting the unpaid and whip-driven labor of his plantation, with the free and happy thrift of the North, he has returned home, "A sadder but a wiser man," feeling from henceforth that woman may labor with her hands," and lose nothing of the charm and glory of womanhood by so doing-that it is only his own dreadful abuse of labor, attempting to reverse its just and holy laws, and substitute brutal compulsion for Acres of girlhood beauty reckoned by the generous and undegrading motives, that has made square rod, or miles by long measure !-The young, the women of his plantation mere beasts of burden, the graceful, the gay-flowers gathered from a thou-or objects of unholy lust, cursing alike themselves sand hill-sides and green vallies of New England- and their oppressors. fair, unveiled Nuns of Industry-Sisters of Thrift,and are ye not also Sisters of Charity, dispensing comfort and hope and happiness around many a hearthstone of your native hills, making sad faces cheerful and hallowing age and poverty with the sunshine of your youth and love!—Who shall sneer at your call-fruits of his industry against the universe." They ing? Who shall count your vocation otherwise than noble and ennobling? Thus is it, that our thousands of Factory Girls," become apostles of Democracy, and teachers of the great truth, which even John C. Calhoun, slaveholder as he is, felt constrained to recognize in his controversy with Webster: "The laborer has a title to the demonstrate the economy of free and paid labor.They dignify woman, by proving that she can place herself in independent circumstances, without derogating from the modesty and decorum of her charac ter :-that she can blend the useful with the beauti expensive burthen upon the other sex-its plaything and its encumbrance--she is capable of becoming a help-mete and a blesssing. Four years ago, in a hasty visit to Lowell I was, at the Boott Corporation in company with JOSEPH STURGE, of Birmingham, the calm, devoted leader of the Democracy of England, and my friend Lt. Ren-ful, and that, instead of casting herself, as a fair but shaw, of South Carolina, and more recently a missionary in Jamaica, among the newly emancipated blacks of that Island. As the bell was ringing, and the crowd of well-dressed, animated and intelligent- Yet, I do not overlook the trials and disadvantages looking young women passed by us on their way to of their position. Not without a struggle have many their lodgings, the philanthropic Englishman could of these females left the old paternal home-stead, not repress his emotions at the strong contrast they and the companions of their childhood. Not as a presented to the degraded and oppressed working- matter of taste and self-gratification have many of women of his own country; and the spectacle, I them exchanged the free breezes, and green mead. doubt not, confirmed and strengtheend his determi-ows, and household duties, of the country, for the nation to consecrate his time, wealth, and honorable close, hot city, and the jar and whirl of these crowdreputation, to the cause of the laborer, at home.-ed and noisy mills. In the midst of the dizzy rush My friend Renshaw, who was banished from his mother's fireside, and his father's grave, for the cause of abolitionism, deeply impressed with the beauty of Freedom, and hope-stimulated industry, exclaimed- Would to God my mother could see this!" At home, he had seen the poor working-women of the South driven by the whip to their daily tasks; here with gaiety and hope, and buoyant gracefulness, he saw the women of New England pass from their labors, making industry beautiful, and throwing the charm of romance and refinement over the dull monotony of their self-alloted tasks. Not in vain then, are the lessons of Free Labor taught by the "Facto-waters, and felt the head reel, and the heart faint, ry Girls." The foreign traveller has repeated them and the limbs tremble with the exhaustion of unrein aristocratic England, in Germany, in France, and mitted toil. Let such be silent. Their sentimentalPrussia-and thus have the seeds of democraticism is a weariness to the worker. Let not her who truth been sown in the waste places of the Old sits daintily with her flowers, herself the fairest," There of machinery, they can hear in fancy the ripple of looking out from cool verandahs on still, green woods and soft flowing waters, to whom Music and Poetry and Romance minister, whose slightest wish is as law to her dependents,-undertake to sentimentalize over the working classes," and quote Carlyle and Goethe, concerning the romance and beauty, and miraculous powers of Work-in the abstract. How is it that with such admirers of Labor, the laborer is so little considered? How is it that they put forth no hand to pull down that hateful wall of distinction which pride has built up between the labourer and the labored for? Excellent was the advice of Dr. Johnson to Boswell: "My dear sir, clear your mind of CANT.” My attention has been called to a neat volume just published in London, consisting of extracts from the Lowell Offering, written by females employed in the mills, to which the English editor has given the title of Mind amongst the Spindles." Thousands will read it, and admire it, who will not reflect upon the fact that these writings are only an exception to the general rule, that after twelve or more hours of steady toil, mind and body are both too weary for intellectual effort. MIND AMONG THE SPINDLES!" Let all manner of Factory Agents, and " Corporations without souls," consider it. The mind of the humblest worker in these mills is of infinitely more consequence in the sight of Him who looks on the realities of His universe, than all the iron-armed and steam-breathed engines of mechanism. serious fact, gentlemen, that among your spindles, and looms, and cottons, and woolens, are thousands of immortal souls-children of our Great Fatherfearfully dependent for their bias towards good or evil, for their tendency upward or downward, upon the circumstances with which they are environed.— Think less of your monster-mechanisms, and more of the SPIRIT WITHIN THE WHEELS." The one may wear out with constant friction, but it is only dead matter. It may be restored. But, who shall repair the worn out body, and renovate that spirit, the life of which has been exhausted by toil too protracted? It is a Yes-let the unpractical say what they will, there is much that is wearisome and irksome in the life of the factory operative. All praise then to those, who, by the cultivation of their minds, and the sweet influences of a healthful literature, have relieved this weariness, and planted with flowers the dusty path-way of Toil. Honor to those who have demonstrated to the blind aristocrats of Europe and America, that the rich and the idle cannot become the entire monopolists of refined tastethat in the temple of Nature, which is open to all, the Beautiful stands side by side with the Useful -Grace throwing her oaken garland over the sun-brown brow of Labor-with the same soft skylight of OUR FATHER'S blessing resting upon all. THE LABOURER. BY WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER. Stand up-erect! Thou hast the form And pure, as breast e'er wore. What then?-Thou art as true a MAN As any of the throng. Who is thine enemy?-the high In station, or in wealth the chief? The great, who coldly pass thee by, With proud step and averted eye? Nay! nurse not such belief. If true unto thyself thou wast, What were the proud one's scorn to thee? A feather, which thou mightest cast Aside, as idly as the blast The light leaf from the tree. No:-uncurb'd passions-low desires-Absence of noble self-respectDeath, in the breast's consuming fires, To that high nature which aspires Forever, till thus checked These are thine enemies-thy worst; Thou art thyself thine enemy! The great!-what better they than thou? As theirs, is not thy will as free? Has God with equal favours thee Neglected to endow ? True, wealth thou hast not: 'tis but dust! Nor place: uncertain as the wind! But that thou hast, which, with thy crust And water, may despise the lust Of both--a noble mind. With this, and passions under ban, True faith, and holy trust in God, Thou art the peer of any man. Look up, then-that thy little span Of life may be well trod! REFORM. BY THOMAS L. HARRIS. A voice peals o'er life's wildly heaving waters, And trembles with the presence of their doom; Falsehood, with fearful agony dissembles, And vice, within her gilded chamber trembles And hate grows darker still with idle rage. But the crushed bondsman hears it, and upspringeth To burst his shackles and once more be free, And shouts aloud until the echo ringeth O'er the far islands of the Eastern sea. The faithful lover of his race rejoices- The champion girds his gleaming armor onThe seer saith God speaks in those earnest voices: Earth's fearful battle-field shall yet be won." Each hallowed martyr of the ages olden Leapeth for joy within his darkened grave, And new-born poets wake with voices golden To chant the glorious actions of the brave; O'er earth it rolls like peals of gathering thunder, And nations rise from slumber on the sod, And angels list, all mute with breathless wonder, Its echo in the living soul of God! O'er every radiant island of creation The music of that swelling peal is borne, Land bears to land, and nation shouts to nation The war-cry of the age-reform !-REFORM! List to that mighty music-O, my brother! Heed thou those anthem-voices, as they roll, Like bursting flames that darkness fain would smother Through the deep chambers of the inner soul, Waking the spirit, in its deathless power, To gird its armor for the daily fight; And in the Present's dark and fearful hour Go forth to battle for the true and right. Hearken, and burst the slimy chains of fashion, Let the false worlding scorn thee if he will; Rise, sun-like, o'er the storms of earthly passion, And stem with fearless breast the tide of ill. Success will crown each arduous endeavor, And from the strife thy soul rise great and free, And deed give birth to deeds that roll forever, Wave after wave, o'er time's grand, azure sea. A crown of thorns the foe may twine around thee: Press on, the way is open, heed not them The mournful wreath, wherewith their hate hath bound "He is the FREEMAN whom the TRUTH makes free, And all are slaves beside."-CowPER. For the Truth, then, let us battle, Long the boast that we are FREEMEN, That his fellow mortal wrongs. He who seeks the Truth, and trembles He, at least, is but a slave. Friend, this simple lay who readest, Bold in speech and bold in action, Scorn the threat that bids thee fear, Let them strike, but make them hear. Be thou like heroic Paul; Scorn the prison, rack, or rod! Speak! and leave the rest to God. |