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Page 43
The moon seems to shine as serenely as then,
That night when the love, yet unspoken,
Lingered long on his lips, and when low-murmured vows
Were pledged, never more to be broken.
Then, drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes the tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree--
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he glides through the broad belt of light,
Towards the shade of a forest so dreary.
Hark! Was it the night wind that rustled the leaves?
Is it moonlight so suddenly flashing?
It looked like a rifle-- "Ha, Mary, good-night!"
His life-blood is ebbing and dashing.
All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
No sound save the rush of the river;
But the dew falls unseen on the face of the dead--
The picket's off duty forever.
_Ethel L. Beers_.
LESSON LXI
WAGES
Wages are a compensation given to the laborer for the exertion of his
physical powers, or of his skill and ingenuity. They must, therefore,
vary according to the severity of the labor to be performed, or to the
degree of skill and ingenuity required. A jeweller or engraver, for
example, must be paid a higher rate of wages than a servant or laborer.
A long course of training is necessary to instruct a man in the
business of jewelling or engraving, and if the cost of his training
were not made up to him in a higher rate of wages, he would, instead of
learning so difficult an art, betake himself to such employments as
require hardly any instruction.
A skilled mason, who has served a long apprenticeship to his trade,
will always obtain higher wages than a common laborer, who has simply
to use his mere bodily strength. Were it not so, there would be
nothing to induce the mason to spend many years in learning a trade at
which he could earn no higher wages than the man who was simply
qualified to carry lime in a hod, or to roll a wheelbarrow.
The wages of labor in different employments vary with the constancy and
inconstancy of employment. Employment is much more constant in some
trades than in others. Many trades can be carried on only in
particular states of weather, and seasons of the year; and if the
workmen who are employed in these cannot easily find employment in
others during the time they are thrown out of work, their wages must be
proportionally raised. A journeyman weaver, shoemaker, or tailor may
reckon, unless trade is dull, upon obtaining constant employment; but
masons, bricklayers, pavers, and in general all those workmen who carry
on their business in the open air, are liable to constant
interruptions. Their wages, accordingly, must be sufficient to
maintain them while they are employed, and also when they are
necessarily idle.
From the preceding observations it is evident that those who receive
the highest wages are not, when the cost of their education, and the
chances of their success, are taken into account, really better paid
than those who receive the lowest. The wages earned by the different
classes of workmen are equal, not when each individual earns the same
number of dollars in a given space of time, but when each is paid in
proportion to the severity of the labor he has to perform, and to the
degree of previous education and skill it requires. So long as each
individual is allowed to employ himself as he pleases, we may be
assured that the rate of wages in different employments will be
comparatively equal.
SELECTION XIX
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