Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1915 — THE LOST BABY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE LOST BABY

By MARY P. MUNSON.

Norm Mulcmhy bent over the little bundle In the hallway. A faint cry issued from among the masses of fine linen and wool. It was an abandoned Infant. Nora’s husband John had just left for the factory. Nora glanced timidly about her. Then, with resolution, she gathered the bundle into her afms and sped up the stairs with it to the little four-room flat at the top of the tenement. A few moments later she was crooning over the little girl as she rocked'her in her arms. I The Mulcahys had been married five years and had had no chilaren. John was the kindest and most considerate of husbands, and this was the only cloud upon their married life. But often Nora wept secretly over the home of two, and in imagination felt the little fingers of the unborn pulling at her gown. That day she went about her work happier than she bad been for months. When John came home she whispered to him mysteriously, her finger upon her lips. “What!” cried her husband. “She’s a little darling,” said Nora. “Oh, John, say that we can keep her.” “Let me look at her,” said the husband, and, entering the bedroom he bent over the crib, which had been improvised out of a large* packing case. "Nora, girl,” he said, “this child isn't for the likes of us. It’s a rich woman’s child. Nora, it's” —his voice dropped—“it’s the Van Nest baby. You know, the one that was kidnaped last week and everybody's making such a hullabaloo about. Look at the letter!" He turned the corner of the linen garment, and Nora saw the letter N upon It. They went back into the living room and argued the matter pro and con, Nora in tears, pleading that the child could be kept "It isn’t possible, girl," said John, shaking his head with conviction. "The police would get wise to it, and that would mean years in the penitentiary. The kidnapers got scared and

dropped it here —that’s the truth about it" “Then you’re going to take it back, John?" "I guess you’ll have to, Nora. I can’t carry a baby. But listen, girl! Do you know there’s a reward of five thousand dollars?” ‘Td rather have the babjv’ Nora sobbed. “You’re talking nonsense, Nora,” answered the husband. “Five thousand dollars is a sight better than somebody else’s kid. Do you know what we’d do with it? We'd go home to the old country, first and foremost. And don’t I see us in a neat little cottage, with a pig and a garden, and—"

Nora at last acquiesced in the plan. She was to take the baby back to the Van Nest house the following morning. John, indeed, had wanted her to do so that night, but she had pleaded so hard that she had persuaded him to let her keep it until the morrow. And, now that its loss seemed inevitable, they began to discuss the future. Five thousand dollars seemed an enormous sum to John. His own. wages were twenty-five, and they had put by a comfortable sum out of that, by frugality. Moreover, John was slated for the foreman’s position when old Richards retired, and that would mean ten more. However, $5,000 would enable them to start life as their own masters. Nora listened to John's prognostications with less ehthusiasm than she pretended. She doubted John’s abil-

ity to,carry out his farming scheme. A farm was all very well in one's* old age, but 5 In youth one needed the impetus of work. And then, there was the baby. That night she cried secretly as she held the little form against her. The little girl had seemed almost to know her, and the chubby arms were stretched out in recognition when she went near. She fell asleep at last and awakened with a splitting headache. 1 John understood what uras wrong. He did not attempt to say very much that morning, and his kiss was unusually tender as he wished her goodby. He even stopped to take the clean little hand in* his own work-stained j one. Nora knew that John had begun i

to feel an attachment foi .he child. She could hardly bea; the duty that lay before her. \ However, after she had done the morning’s work she put on her new cloak and best bonnet and took the baby out into the street. It was a wonderful sensation to sit in the car, holding the child in her arms. Everybody looked at her and beamed on the baby, which they thought was her own. At last she reached the Van Nest house and, tremblingly, she rang the bell. The butler, who answered the door, looked searchingly at her as Nora, in faltering accents, explained her riiisslon. He ushered her into the drawing-room as if she had been a person of quality, and it wasn’t a moment before a young woman entered the room and looked at Nora — sternly, Nora thought Nora had planned her speech, but now it all left her. She stood up before Mrs. Van Nest, holding the baby. "Indeed, ma’am, I didn't steal her,”

she was ! crying, and the tears streamed down her cheeks. "She was left at the door yesterday morning, ma'am, and when I showed her to John last night he said it was your baby, and people were advertising for it and it’d have to go back. And so I brought her this morning, ma’am, as soon as the work was done.” Mrs. Van Nest seemed to soften a little. “You have no children of your own?” she asked. Nora remained mute, and the tears fell faster. “I believe you are honest,” said Mrs. Van Nest, coming forward with an expression altogether new. “So many impostors have been trying .to trade on us since our—misfortune. You wouldn't believe how brazen people will be to get $5,000. But that isn’t my baby.”

* Nora, staggered, looked at Mrs. Van Nest with eyes that could hardly see through the mists that gathered before them. “My baby was recovered yesterday,’’ Mrs. Van Nest continued, “and none the worse, I am happy to say. Besides, he is a boy.” “Oh! Might I see him?” breathed Nora. And then, with their common interest, the two women proceeded side by side to the nursery, where Nora bent in wonder over the prettiest baby that she had ever seen —except the little one which still lay in her arms. John that night, arriving at the door of the flat, was amazed to hear the crowing of a child within. Angry for a moment, he mastered himself and went in sternly. Nora’s arms were about his neck in a moment and stifled his protests. “John, it isn’t hers!” she cried. "And what do you think? She’s promised to be godmother at the christening, and —and the five thousand is going to the baby for her education, and—oh, John, we’re going to keep her, and there’s a chance of a position for you as manager at their country home, and —and we’re going to keep her, John!” (Copyright, 1915. by XV. G. Chapman.)

Whispered to Him Mysteriously.