People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1896 — LOST AND FOUND. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LOST AND FOUND.

Such a mite as It was, to he 3ure! Such absurd little handß that flew here and there, now after a dancing sunbeam, now clutching the Bright, round, brass buttons of the officer’s great coat. What eyes, like twin .sapphires, that twimuea anu greamea so sotuy under the brown lashes! How tiny the whiteshod feet that kicked against the wide in which the policeman had placed its royal babyship! “Guess you ain’t acquainted with police stations,” said the sergeant, “but you seem pretty much at home, just the same.” “Cudga, cudga, cudga,” it answered. “Da-da, da-da, dada.” “We hear all sorts of languages here, but we don’t seem to understand you,” remarked one of the officers. Then, turning to a fellow-policeman, he asked: “Where did you fin'd the kid?” “I didn’t. It found me.' I guess Its mammy was a-shoppln’ and it must have walked out of a store. Ahyhow, I never caught sight of it until it trotted out into the street and took hold o’ my hand. I waited round with it a long time, hopin’ its mammy would come for it, and then I brought it here.” “Blame me, if it ain’t the dandiest youngster I ever clapped eyes on!” put in the sergeant, as the absurd little hand patted the silver star on the sergeant’s coat. “Seems to be well togged out, too; ain’t no ordinary, everyday kid, judgin' by its clothes.” The object of this conversation now held up its short little arms and wrinkled up its face. The tiny lips began to quiver as no move was made to take it. “Blamed if I dare hold you’” said the sergeant. “I’d break you somewhere or let you drop and then where’d you be?” “Da-da, da-da-da, cudga, cudga,” it answered. The sergeant stooped and looked into the sapphire eyes. The

little arms closed around the red, fat neck and the tiny mouth smiled in baby happiness. The sergeant’s big awkward hands gathered the bundles w. white cashmeres and lace up into a clumsy heap and its babyship cooed happily over the shoulder of the bluacoat. Half a dozen policemen were now ardent admirers, of the precocious lost one, and devoted themselves, with apparent willingness, to entertaining it They shook their grimy fingers in its pinkish face, for they found that thid action brought forth gurgles and grins and evidences of keen enjoyment. Dougherty, the oldest and most dignified man on the force, even went so far as to do an awkward sort of a shuffling jig, which not only amused the child, but set the reßt of the officers into a loud and hilarious fit of laughing. It was nearly dark when she reached the number indicated, a tenement house, apparently all windows and doors. “Fourth floor, front, No. 11,” said her direction, and gathering her silken skirts closely around her, Miss Fisher mounted the stairs. She knocked softly at the door of No. 11. A holloweyed child, scantily dressed, opened It Just enough to peep through. Gertrude could see the murky glimmer of a kero-

sene lamp on the table and the sullen glow of an insufficient fire in a tiny cylinder stove. The room was small and close and bore the aspect of the most wretched poverty. “I have come In search of a seamstress who works for Mme. D’Aubri," said Gertrude. , “Mamma,” said the child, doubtfully, but she opened the door a fraction wider, and Gertrude entered. A woman was sewing with intent eyes and flying fingers. A man lay stretched motionless on the bed, with his back toward them. “You are in trouble,” said Gertrude, gently. Tfle woman made a fretful motion of her elbow, but kept her eyes fastened steadily on her work. “Don’t disturb me!” she said, petulantly. “I am free at last; but I can’t bury him until I have finished this work and got the money.” “Lydia!” The woman looked up at length, pushing back the shining hair that hung wildly over her eyes. “Who is it that calls me by my old ««me?” “I, Gertrude!” There was something In her voice and manner that made Lydia drop her work and rise hurriedly to her feet. The next moment she was sobbing convulsively in Gertrude’s arms. “Oh, Gertrude!” she wailed, “I wronged you cruelly, but I was punished. If you but knew how miserable, how poverty-stricken I have been! And he,” with a shudder, “he beat me, and drank and squandered my wretched earnings, but he is dead now! Thank heaven, he Is dead!” Gertrude went to the Bide of the couch and looked at the face of her dead lover, the man she had so worshipped years before. It was old and haggard, with sunken features and set lines round the mouth and brow. And as she stood shuddering there, the last spark of the love she had so cherished died out forever. “Lydia,” she said, turning to cousin, “you must come home with me; you and your child.” “With you, Gertrude?” “With me.” And she bent down to press a kiss upon the brow that had once been so fair, while the little one, taught by a child’s unerring Instinct, clung closer to her skirts. In all the pain and bitterness of her first bereavement, Gertrude had never wished for revenge, but she had’it now, full and complete!

FOUND IN THE STREET.