Judge Blake's Hard Time.
By William N. Burr
THE thought often comes to me that Gilbert was born with a genius for finding out people who have a hard time. One day last week a new family appeared down on the bottoms, put up a tent, moved into it for the winter, hung out a sign bearing the words, "Washing, Ironing, and Mending," and before Saturday night Gilbert knew all about their hardships, and had dropped much of the oil of comfort and good cheer into the lives of the shrinking, discouraged man and woman, as they told me to-day when I called upon them, at Gilbert's suggestion. "I called on Judge Blake this morning," Gilbert began as we sat down to the supper table this evening. "I thought I'd just run in and talk over that mining business a little, though I don't suppose we can do much with those new claims before spring; but I didn't get a chance to say a word of the matter I went to talk about. The Judge was having one of his 'unhappy-state-of-mind spells,' as old Aunt Clarindy would say, and so I put in the forenoon trying to get him under the influence of something that would give pleasure to himself and more comfort to those about him." "I suppose you found the Judge packing up his pile of deeds, notes, certificates, and what not of that like, preparatory to his long-anticipated advent into the county poor-house, didn't you?" I remarked, attempting facetiousness, for I knew Judge Blake, or thought I knew him, about as well as any man of my acquaintance. "Not exactly," laughed Gilbert in reply; "but that which you have suggested would hardly have been any more foolish, to my mind, than was the unwarranted grumbling mood in which I found that man, sitting as he was in his warm, cheery library—a perfect picture of comfort and quiet it was, but for the scowl on the brow of the man who calls that fine house his own. He grumbled about this, that, and the other, until one might have thought the woe of the world rested on Judge Blake alone. His mines had not yielded during the year all he expected; rents are lower than they were two months ago; two of his down-town store-rooms have been vacant for a week, and one of his tenants could pay him only two-thirds of his rent the first of the month, promising the other third, however, by the tenth. He went on at such a rate that I began to think if dyspepsia were catching, it was best for me either to attempt to cure the Judge at once or not expose myself further to what might prove a calamitous result; so I said to him:— "'Judge, you have a horse in the stable and a fine sleigh haven't you?'" "'Yes,' he replied; 'do you want to borrow the rig to give some miserable invalid a sleigh-ride?'" "'I was going to propose that you and I take a little drive out together this morning,' I said. 'It will do you good to get out of doors, and I want you to make a call or two with me.'" "'On some of your hard-time folks, I presume, to teach me that there are trials and tears in this world which I know not of,' he snapped, at the same time going to the door and calling to his man to bring around the sleigh. 'Well, I suppose I do grumble more than there is any need of doing, but I tell you what 'tis, Gilbert, those miserable people down on the bottoms ain't the only ones that have a hard time of it in this world.'" "The Judge's fine turnout was soon in readiness, and putting on his heavy overcoat, fur cap, and gloves, he announced himself at my service." "I drove down town, occasionally giving him a sort of good-fellow pat on the back as we passed certain blocks which bore his name, and then we went over to the North Side and stopped at Mrs. Mallory's." "'Now for tears and trouble, and a long-faced recital of life-long trials,' said the Judge, as we alighted." "I did not say a word, for just then we caught the sound of Mrs. Mallory's voice, singing:—
The trivial round, the common task
Will furnish all we ought to ask:
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To lead us daily nearer God." "I knocked and was admitted by the cheery little washer-woman herself, who, as she said, had just stopped rubbing to sing out a verse that had been in her mind ever since she got up that morning." "Well, we chatted with Mrs. Mallory for an hour, and before we left, the Judge, in his shrewd, lawyer-like way, began to question the good woman as to her circumstances and needs. He found out some things that she never would have told voluntarily, and indeed I doubt if she knew sometimes just how much information she was giving him, he put his questions so shrewdly; but when we were back again in the sleigh, the Judge took the reins, explaining to me that he proposed to do the directing as to where we should go next." "He drove back to Merilar Street, and devoted himself for half an hour to ordering coal, provisions, etc., etc., to be sent to Mrs. Mallory, North Side. Then we drove back to his house in silence." "He gave the horse and sleigh over into the hands of his hired man, and then so urgently invited me to go with him into the library that I abandoned the thought of accomplishing all I had planned for the forenoon, and went with him. When we were again seated before the grate he looked up and said:—" "'Gilbert, I'm too much ashamed of myself to know what to say; but if you ever hear me complaining again of having a hard time, I wish you'd knock me down at once, and don't be at all alarmed if I don't get up again until I have begged your pardon on my knees. Now, what was it you came over to talk about this morning?'"