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[Illustration: cover]

  Number One.

  MY MOTHER'S GOLD RING.

  FOUNDED ON FACT.

  Eighth Edition.

  Boston:
  PUBLISHED BY FORD AND DAMRELL.
  1833.

  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by
  FORD AND DAMRELL,
  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.




TO THE READER.


This is the first of a series of stories, of which it possibly may be
the beginning and the end. The incident, which is the foundation of the
following tale, was communicated to the writer, by a valued friend, as a
fact, with the name of the principal character. Another friend, to whom
the manuscript was given, perceiving some advantage in its publication,
has thought proper to give it to the world, as Number One; from which I
infer, that I am expected to write a Number Two. The hint may be worth
taking, at some leisure moment. In the mean time, pray read Number One:
it can do you no harm: there is nothing "_sectarian_" about it. When you
have read it, if, among all your connexions and friends, you can think
of none, whom its perusal may possibly benefit--and it will be strange
if you cannot--do me the favor to present it to the first little boy
that you meet. He will, no doubt, take it home to his mother or his
father. If you will not do this, throw it in the street, as near to some
dram-seller's door, as you ever venture to go: let it take the course of
the flying seed, which God is pleased to entrust to the keeping of the
winds: it may yet spring up and bear fruit, if such be the will of Him,
who giveth the increase.




THE GOLD RING.


I have one of the kindest husbands: he is a carpenter by trade, and our
flock of little children has one of the kindest fathers in the county. I
was thought the luckiest girl in the parish, when G---- T---- made me
his wife: I thought so myself. Our wedding-day--and it was a happy
one--was but an indifferent sample of those days of rational happiness
and uninterrupted harmony, which we were permitted to enjoy together,
for the space of six years. And although, for the last three years of
our lives, we have been as happy as we were at the beginning, it makes
my heart sick to think of those long dark days and sad nights, that came
between; for, two years of our union were years of misery. I well
recollect the first glass of ardent spirit that my husband ever drank.
He had been at the grocery to purchase a little tea and sugar for the
family; there were three cents coming to him in change; and, unluckily,
the Deacon, who keeps the shop, had nothing but silver in the till; and,
as it was a sharp, frosty morning, he persuaded my good man to take his
money's worth of rum, for it was just the price of a glass. He came home
in wonderful spirits, and told me he meant to have me and the children
better dressed, and, as neighbor Barton talked of selling his horse and
chaise, he thought of buying them both; and, when I said to him,
"George, we are dressed as well as we can afford, and I hope you will
not think of a horse and chaise, till we have paid off the Squire's
mortgage," he gave me a harsh look and a bitter word. I never shall
forget that day, for they were the first he ever gave me in his life.
When he saw me shedding tears, and holding my apron to my face, he said
he was sorry, and came to kiss me, and I discovered that he had been
drinking, and it grieved me to the heart. In a short time after, while I
was washing up the breakfast things, I heard our little Robert, who was
only five years old, crying bitterly; and, going to learn the cause, I
met him running towards me with his face covered with blood.

He said his father had taken him on his knee, and was playing with him,
but had given him a blow in the face, only because he had said, when he
kissed him,