Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1878 — The Hearts of the Lowly. [ARTICLE]

The Hearts of the Lowly.

One day, three or four weeks ago, a gamin, who seemed to have no friends in the world, was run over by a vehicle, on Madison avenue, New York, and fatally injured. After he had been in the hospital for a week, a boy about his own size, and looking as friendless and forlorn, called to ask about him and leave an orange. He seemed much embarrassed and would answer no questions. After that he came daily, always bringing something, if no more than an apple. Last week, when the nurse told him that Billy had no chance to get well, the strange boy waited around longer than usual, and finally asked if he could go in. He had been invited to many times before, but had always refused. Billy, pale and weak and emaciated, opened his eyes in wonder at the tight of the boy, and before he realized who it was the stranger bent close to his face and sobbed : “ Billy, can ye forgive a feller ? We was alius fighting, and I was alius too much for ye ; but I’m sorry ! ’Fore ye die won’t ye tell me ye haven’t any grudge agin me ?” The young lad, then almost in the shadow of death, reached up his thin, white arms, clasped them around the other’s neck, and replied : “ Don’t cry, Rob. Don’t feel bad. I was ugly and mean, and I was heaving a stone at ye when the wagon hit me. If ye’ll forgive me, I’ll forgive you, and I’ll pray for both of us. ” Bob was half an hour late the morning Billy died. When the nurse took him to the shrouded corpse, ho kissed the pale face tenderly, and gasped : “ D-aid he say anything about—about me?” “ He spoke of you just before he died. Asked if you were here,” replied the nurse. “ And may I go—go to the funeral ?” “You may.” And he did. He was the only mourner. His heart was the only ore that ached. No tears were shed by others, and they left him sitting by the newmade grave, with heart so big that he could not speak. If under the crust of vice and ignorance there are such springs of pure feeling and true nobility, who shall grow weary of doing good ?— lndependent.