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Peck's Sunshine, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Our Christian Neighbors Have Gone |
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_ It pains us to announce that the Young Men's Christian Association, which has had rooms on two sides of our office for more than a year, has moved away. We do not know why they moved, as we have tried to do everything that it was possible to do for their comfort, and to cheer them in their lonely life. That their proximity to the _Sun_ office has been beneficial to them we are assured, and the closeness has not done us any hurt as we know of. Many times when something has happened that, had it happened in La Crosse, might have caused us to be semi-profane, instead of giving way to the fiery spirit within us, and whooping it up, we have thought of our neighbors who were truly good, and have turned the matter over to our business manager, who would do the subject justice or burst a flue. When the young Christians have given a sociable, we have always put on a resigned and pious expression and gone amongst them about the time the good bald-headed brother brought up the pail full of coffee, and the cheerful sister cut the cake. No one has been more punctual at these free feeds than we have, though we have often noticed that we never got a fair divide of the cake that was left, when they were dividing it up to carry home for the poor. We have been as little annoyed by our neighbors as we could have been by anybody that might have occupied the rooms. It is true that at times the singing of a church tune in there when we were writing a worldly editorial has caused us to get tangled, but the piety that we have smuggled into our readers through the church music will more than atone for the wrath we have felt at the discordant music, and we have hopes the good brothers will not be averse to saying a good word for us when they feel like it. When we lent the young Christians our sanctum as a reception room for the ladies when they gave the winter picnic to the dry goods clerks, we _did_ feel a little hurt at finding so many different kinds of hair pins on the carpet the next morning, and the different colors of long hair on our plush chairs and raw silk ottoman would have been a dead give away on any other occasion, but for this, even, we have forgiven the young Christians, though if we ever do so again they have got to agree to comb the lounge and the chairs before we shall ever occupy the rooms again. There is nothing that is so hard to explain as a long hair of another color, or hair pins and blue bows, and pieces of switch. They are gone, and we miss them. No more shall we hear the young Christian slip up on the golden stairs and roll down with his boot heel pointing heavenward, while the wail of a soul in anguish comes over the banisters, and the brother puts his hand on his pistol pocket and goes out the front door muttering a silent prayer, with blood in his eyes. No more will the young Christian faint by the wayside as he brings back our borrowed chairs and finds a bottle and six glasses on our center table, when he has been importuning us to deliver a temperance speech in his lecture room. Never again shall we witness the look of agony on the face of the good brother when we refuse to give five dollars towards helping discharged criminals to get a soft thing, while poor people who never committed a crime and have never been supported by the State are amongst us feeling the pangs of hunger. No more shall we be compelled to watch the hard looking citizens who frequent the reading room of the association for fear they will enter our office in the still watches of the night and sleep on the carpet with their boots on. They are all gone. They have gone across the beautiful river, and have camped near the _Christian Statesman_ office, where all is pure and good except the houses over on Second street, beyond the livery stable, where they never will be molested if they do not go there. Will they be treated any better in their new home than they have been with us? Will they have that confidence in their new neighbors that they have always seemed to have in us? Well, we hope they may be always happy, and continue to do good, and when they come to die and go to St. Peter's gate, if there is any back talk, and they have any trouble about getting in, the good old doorkeeper is hereby assured that we will vouch for the true goodness and self-sacrificing devotion of the Milwaukee Young Men's Christian association, and he is asked to pass them in and charge it up to the _Sun_. _ |
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