"Ulric had left Norway in the early summer with some score of his neighbors to settle in Iowa, with money enough in his purse from hard earnings to buy him a small farm, and with good hope of getting a shelter over the heads of his family before cold weather. But the oft repeated, only sadder because frequent tale, of imposition and outrage upon emigrants, had been true of him. A drunken captain in a leaky water-logged ship spun out their voyage to a most unexpected length; their store of provision was exhausted; famine, bad air, a closely packed crowd, the heat of calms, and above all, care and trouble, bred fever on board, and late in August he landed sick at quarantine. Recovery was slow; expenses, necessary and unnecessary of all kinds eat up his means ; the duplicity of a fellow lodger when they had actually reached New York lessened still more his little capital; in a dirty, crowded inn, amidst filth and noise his baby was born; his companions more fortunate had gone a month and more before him; he paid to a cheating agent who assured him that he could reach the far west his full fare round the lakes, with a company of Germans who did not speak his language, as he did not theirs, had he left Albany; and now where and how thought he, as with little Fritz's hand in his he trudged over the frozen ruts, where and how were he and his to winter. Pious parents had taught Ulric in maxims, written into his very heart, that the Providence which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, counts the very hairs of the head of the humblest and poorest. And but for faith in this law of divine love which shines warm in adversity, his prospect in life would have seemed more cheerless and bleak than the bare trees and heathery hills of this strange land. But Fritz! what was hardship to a boy. He picked up the glossy chestnuts which the wind had shaken from the open burrs, laughed at the squirrels which chippered as they ran on the fences and hid, and echoed the caw of the crows as they flew southward overhead. "What bankrupts in happy love would grown men be in this hard world, were it not for the treasure of joy which youth stores in the heart.
Weeks passed, and December with its fogs and rains, and January with its snows and thaws had come, Ulric gaining as he could with the saw, for which he paid the last dollar, small sums amidst many rival applicants for the poor privilege of earning an honest livelihood by humble toil, when at last his goods were pawned, his funds exhausted, and one evening he found himself standing in the street holding his baby, while the children warmed their feet by stamping on the sloppy pavement, and their mother was for the first time in her life begging bread. The lamps shone,on the sad group. Many stopped for a moment and muttering "emigrants,"hurried on to comfortable houses. But at length a gentleman rather advanced in life, with a lady several years younger leaning on his arm, in the countenances of each of which a kindly smile lingered as if from pleased recollection of the visit of mercy from which they were returning, came to where they stood, and did not pass, but pressed poor Ulric's hand and patted the wet shoulders of the children, and drew from their imperfect words the story of their sufferings. " What can we do for them, Mary ; is not the room where the Carey's lived empty now ? There is a bed chamber adjoining, and a stove, and I think they will do very well. Let us get them there at once." To procure a cart, to place the children upon it, to find the mother, and give the driver his directions, was for this benevolent couple the work of a few moments; and then with Ulric they followed. It was an hour beyond their usual time of taking their evening meal, and it carried them far from their course through the melting snow and mild; but kindness was to them as daily food; the needy were ever their nearest kin, and love made the " longest way round their shortest road home," as they had often and often proved. Did not the face of Fritz, glowing red as he blew the fire, and the gentle form of the sick mother as sitting on the floor she rocked to sleep her infant, and the half bashful, half confiding group of the children hungrily eating their supper, and Ulric's courteous thanks, as cap in hand he bowed them from the door, mingle pleasantly in their dreams that night ?" More tomorrow...
Blessings
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