The
night before he died, no one near him could sleep for his piteous
moaning and sad cries,--"I am afraid to die; I want my mother."
O Bennie! if we had seen this poor little fellow, so unprotected and
sorrowful, with no means of support but exhibiting those poor little
white mice, we should, I am sure, have felt that we could not be too
thankful for all the comforts of our dear home. Yet, when I heard this
story, the contrast with my own favored lot did not at first make me
happier; for I began to realize how many miserable beings there are in
the world, whose suffering we cannot relieve, and may never know. I
could not eat a mouthful that day, for thinking of the melancholy little
Italian boy. I wonder if that was his sister on board the steamer! How
could his mother let him go so far away from her? Perhaps, though, she
was starving at home, and had heard of America as a land of plenty.
I don't think that I shall ever want to go abroad myself; for they say
that in foreign countries one sees so many poor, miserable children; and
that would make me so unhappy that I should not enjoy any thing. I said
so to David; but he talks like a young philosopher. He seems to have a
way of keeping himself from feeling badly about others, though he has a
very good heart, and, if he gave way to it, could make himself as
unhappy about others as I sometimes do. He says he could enjoy looking
at St.
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