The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Brace Of Boys, by Fitz Hugh Ludlow

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Title: A Brace Of Boys
1867, From "Little Brother"

Author: Fitz Hugh Ludlow

Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23170]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger

A BRACE OF BOYS

By Fitz Hugh Ludlow

From "Little Brother,"

Copyright, 1867, by Lee & Shepard

I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody;
but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially,
just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human race;
and if, through untoward circumstances--which Heaven forbid--I should
lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw me out
in the "Herald" under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks to a marrying
tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little need to advertise,
all the business being thrown into my way which a single member of my
profession can attend to. I suppose you won't agree with me; but, do you
know, sometimes I think it's better than having children of one's own?
People tell me that I'd feel very differently if I did have any. Perhaps
so, but then, too, I might be unwise with them; I might bother them
into mischief by trying to keep them out. I might be avaricious
of them--might be tempted to lock them up in my own stingy old
nursery-chest instead of paying them out to meet the bills of humanity
and keep the Lord's business moving. I might forget, when I had spent
my life in fining their gold and polishing their graven-work, that
they were still vessels for the Master's use--I only the Butler--the
sweetness and the spirit with which they brimmed all belonging to His
lips who tasted bitterness for me. Then, if seeking to drain another's
wine, I raised the chalice to my lips and found it gall, or felt it
steal into my old veins to poison the heart and paralyze the hand which
had kept it from the Master, what further good would there be for me in
the world? Who doesn't know, in some friend's house, a closet containing
that worst of skeletons--the skeleton which, in becoming nake