Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 196, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1917 — ADOPTING FRIEDA [ARTICLE]

ADOPTING FRIEDA

By JANE OSBORNE.

“Oh, Miranda, will you hold the door open there? I’ve got a little girl in my arms. You haven’t heard of anyone that has lost 9 little girl, have you?” With these words Peter Hobson broke the news of his discovery late that memorable night in midsummer. He had been on his weekly trip to the nearest settlement, 20 miles down the valley. Usually on such nights In summer Miranda dozed in her chair with the screen on the front door unhooked; for Miranda had lived alone with her stalwart brother too many years ta fear tramps or thieves on their, desolate side of the mountain. ; “Where in the land of the living did you find her?” was Miranda’s not too hospitable comment. But, as Peter carried the sleeping child to the light of the solitary lamp that smoked and flickered in the draft on the livingroom table, the sister’s weather-beaten, hard-set features softened and a smile broke over her face. “Hadn’t you better set her down?” she asked. She was pulling at the ruffled white petticoats which had become crushed in the strong man’s arms. “We must wake her up and ask her who she is. Her mother must be worried almost sick. Peter, isn’t she pretty?” Peter made no comment, but from the tenderness with which he brushed with his big clumsy hands a golden curl that had fallen across Frieda’s face Miranda needed not to be told that the big brother of hers had lost his heart to the child he had found. He had heard a cry in the thicket of the woods as he was coming home — about 15 miles down the road. It was just-turning dark at the time. He stopped his horses and followed through the pathless woods for a few rods and then catne upon the little girl. She was crouching under the side of a large bowlder, and at first seemed too startled to. speak. “She started to tell me about herself,” Peter explained to his sister. “Did tell me her name was Frieda, and then she fainted away in my arms. How old should you judge her to be?”

“From the way she is dressed she is a sizable child of nine or ten —can’t be any more.” Just then the little girl waked up, and Peter and Miranda hurried to attentlon. With a little milk and some of Miranda’s good bread Frieda regained strength and before many minutes had passed she was laughing merrily and perfectly at ease with her generous .hostess. “You ar£ so good to me,” she said sleepily. “No one was ever so good to me in the world before.” “Now, do you want to try and tell us whose little girl you are?” Peter asked patiently, kneeling down before her. “No, no, no,” she shook her head. “Maybe tomorrow. But this is so —— —- — A few minutes later Miranda had shown the little girl to the “spare room.”

The morning brought no news of the Tost child’s Identity. Miranda and ffer brother had thought she would be able to explain or give some clew as to who she was. But to all their queries she had but one reply—“l ddn’t know —I am so happy. Let me stay.” By the end of ten days It seemed so apparent that her identity would never be discovered that brother and sister were making plans for legally adopting her. It was two weeks after Frieda had first crept Into Peter’s arms and his heart down there on the mountainside When he opened a New York paper to read this heading: “Movie actress still missing. Film company now planning to make search of mountainside.” And then Peter read the article that told that two weeks before a cinema company had been taking pictures of a big feature play along ihe mountainside. A company of 25 Juvenile actresses w’as included in the scenes. Somewhere one of these girls, who on the day of her disappearance was dressed to Impersonate a girl of ten or twelve, had been lost. A glance at the newspaper account was enough to assure Frieda that her secret was known. She looked at Peter very wistfully.

“I didn’t tell you before, because it was like heaven here with you and Miranda. I got lost that day with the company, before you found me. There w’as a thunder storm and everyone ran to shelter and w’hen It w’as over I was alone. I walked through the woods for an age and then you found me. I was going to tell you, but I must have fainted, and after that I liked you so much I didn’t want to leave you. I tried to make myself believe that I w’as just the little girl you thought I Was.' Pm seventeen, really. But I never had a chance to be a'little girl, so I wanted to stay here. Don’t make me go away, please. There is no one ‘in the world I care for the way I do you and Miranda. Please let mes stay.” ■ ■ » <_____»

“I have been thinking,” he began very awkwardly, “that maybfe Fd have a chance to—to marry you when you grew up. But now you are almost grown up already, I won’t have Jo wait" long." Frieda’s tears had stopped. She looked up at him with the happiness that had shown in her face the first night When he had found her. “Oh, Peter, I am so happy,” she whispered. (Copyright, 1917, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicated