[6] And yet 'twas quite affecting, I declare, How some had ornaments up, even there! Not crime itself, or sad misfortune's smart Can crush all sense of beauty from the heart! [THE BOY CONVICT'S STORY.] I'd rather sit here, Mr. Sheriff--up near to the end of the car; We won't do so much advertising if we stay in the seat where we are. That sweet little dude saw the bracelets that you on my wrists have bestowed, And tells the new passengers promptly you're "taking me over the road." I've had a well-patronized trial--the neighbors all know of my fall; But when I get out among strangers I'm sensitive-like, after all. For I was a lad of good prospects, some three or four summers ago-- There wasn't any boy in our township who made a more promising show! I learned all of Solomon's proverbs, and took in their goodness and worth, Till I felt like a virtue-hooped barrel, chock-full of the salt of the earth. And this precious picnic of sorrow would likely enough have been saved, If I had had less of a heart, sir, or home had contained what it craved. For the time when a boy is in danger of walking a little bit wild, Is when he's too young to be married--too old to be known as a child; A bird in the lonely grass thickets, just out of the parent tree thrown, Too large to be kept in the old nest--too small to have one of his own; When, desolate 'mid his companions, his soul is a stake to be won; 'Tis then that the Devil stands ready to get a good chance to catch on! Oh, yes! I'd a good enough home, sir, so far as the house was concerned; My parents were first-class providers--I ate full as much as I earned. My clothes were all built of good timber, and fit every day to be seen; There wasn't any lock on the pantry--my bedroom was tidy and clean; And taking the home up and down, sir, I'd more than an average part, With one quite important exception--_there wasn't any room for my heart_. The house couldn't have been any colder, with snow-drifts in every room! The house needn't have been any darker to make a respectable tomb! I used to stop short on the door-step, and brace up a minute or more, And bid a good-bye to the sunshine, before I would open the door; I used to feed daily on icebergs--take in all the freeze I could hold-- Then go out and warm in the sunshine, because my poor heart was so cold! And hadn't I a father and mother? Oh yes! just as good as they make-- _Too_ good, I have often suspected (though maybe that last's a mistake). But they'd travelled so long and so steady the way to Perfection's abode, They hadn't any feeling for fellows who could not as yet find the road; And so, till some far advanced mile-post on goodness's pike I could win, They thought of me, not as their own child, but as one of the children of sin.