A NEW YEAR'S RIDE
WITH A LESSON.
A GAY party of would-be young gentlemen and ladies rode up to the hotel of a neighboring town.
It was the vacation of the holidays, and the school was out for a ride. While awaiting the call to dinner, one of the young men, looking from the window, saw a strange object approaching, and called the attention of the other members of the party to it. Some of the girls screamed, others burst into laughter. Straight and lithe as an Indian, and somewhat resembling, in tawny skin and unkempt locks, the original proprietors of the soil, was the unconscious originator of all this confusion. As he approached the hotel at a pace reminding one of him of whom Longfellow says, "At each step a mile he measured," and clad from head to foot in a suit of leather; the young people could not conceal their merriment. They lost no time in making the acquaintance of one who seemed to possess the wisdom of the serpent, combined with the harmlessness of the dove. No first class newspaper reporter ever received more civil replies to his questions than this dusky son of the forest gave the thoughtless group of which he was the central figure. Their rude sallies of cheap wit, such as, "Who is your barber," "Please give US the address of your tailor," etc., were passed by with supreme indifference. After finishing his dinner, and filling the leather bag which hung over his shoulder with the plainer necessaries of life, he paid his bill, registered his name, and, wishing his persecutors a "Happy New Year," departed.
"Perhaps," said the landlord, "you would be interested to know that our visitor was no other than John J. Audubon."
He had selected for clothing the material best suited to the tangles of the forest brushwood through which he must pass in his researches, and had come in from his favorite employment to satisfy the demands of hunger, and provide for future necessity. There were those in the party to whom the name of this illustrious man meant no more than any other name; but there were others whose faces flushed and paled alternately at the thought of their inexcusable rudeness, and the quiet courtesy of the author of "The Birds of America," pronounced by Cuvier "the most gigantic and most magnificent monument ever erected to nature."
Bear in mind, dear young friends, that worth is
not always habited in the garb of wealth, and that a true gentleman or lady considers equally sacred the feelings of prince or pauper.
MARY MARTIN.