University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

“One cigar a day!” said Judge Boompointer.

“One cigar a day!” repeated John Jenkins, as with
trepidation he dropped his half-consumed cigar under
his work-bench.

“One cigar a day is three cents a day,” remarked
Judge Boompointer, gravely, “and do you know, sir,
what one cigar a day, or three cents a day, amounts
to in the course of four years?”

John Jenkins, in his boyhood, had attended the
village school, and possessed considerable arithmetical
ability. Taking up a shingle which lay upon
his work-bench, and producing a piece of chalk,
with a feeling of conscious pride he made an exhaustive
calculation:

“Exactly forty three dollars and eighty cents,”
he replied, wiping the perspiration from his heated

brow, while his face flushed with honest enthusiasm.

“Well, sir, if you saved three cents a day, instead
of wasting it, you would now be the possessor
of a new suit of clothes, an illustrated Family
Bible, a pew in the church, a complete set of
Patent Office Reports, a hymn-book, and a paid
subscription to Arthur's Home Magazine, which could
be purchased for exactly forty-three dollars and eighty
cents—and,” added the Judge, with increasing
sternness, “if you calculate leap-year, which you
seem to have strangely omitted—you have three
cents more, sir; three cents more!” What would
that buy you, sir?”

“A cigar,” suggested John Jenkins; but, coloring
again deeply, he hid his face.

“No, sir,” said the Judge, with a sweet smile of
benevolence stealing over his stern features; “properly
invested, it would buy you that which passeth
all price. Dropped into the missionary box, who
can tell what heathen, now idly and joyously wantoning
in nakedness and sin, might be brought to
a sense of his miserable condition, and made, through
that three cents, to feel the torments of the wicked?”

With these words the Judge retired, leaving John
Jenkins buried in profound thought. “Three cents
a day,” he muttered. “In forty years I might be
worth four hundred and thirty-eight dollars and ten
cents—and then I might marry Mary. Ah, Mary!”
The young carpenter sighed, and drawing a twenty-five

cent daguerreotype from his vest pocket, gazed
long and fervidly upon the features of a young girl
in book muslin and a coral necklace. Then, with
a resolute expression, he carefully locked the door
of his workshop and departed.

Alas! his good resolutions were too late. We trifle
with the tide of fortune which too often nips
us in the bud and casts the dark shadow of misfortune
over the bright lexicon of youth! That
night the half-consumed fragment of John Jenkins's
cigar set fire to his work-shop and burned it up, together
with all his tools and materials. There was
no insurance.