Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1881 — Blessed Babies. [ARTICLE]

Blessed Babies.

Collected from Exchanges. 1. - fast Week th#passengers in a car bound out from St. Louis on the Ohio and Mississippi railroad began to be annoyed by the cries of a baby. The men swore secretly and the women wondered why the baby’s mother didn’t stop its mouth. Bptit soon becam# e#idtht Che. baby was alone. The tiny creature, no bigger than a bandbox, wriggled off_ its seat and fell, in THemidsT of ah ear-splitting squall, to Die floor. Then the nearest woman rushed over to pick the infant up, and in less time than it takes to tell it all the passengers got to know of the sensational matter. “No. indeed, it isn’t my young one!” indignantly exolaimad the maiden yho first ran'to us assistance. “It Isn’t repeated several other ladled to’ fne inquiry of the conductor, but an old maid in a corner seat bit the handle of her umbrella half off in silence. From that momment until the train stopped at Relay Station the excitement was iir keeping with the narvelty of the 6ccurance. Some thought that, the !»- rnui's mother had deserted it. Others were Of the opinion that she had been left behind through accident. As the train pulled into Relay, Depotmaster Whitney,who was seen wildly flourishing a telegram, shouted: “Ain’t there a lost baby on this train?” A dozen heads were out at a dozen windows and a dozen voices cried, “Yes.” The baby was handed to Mr. Witney, and the train passed on. Meanwhile, at the union depot in St. Louis a disconsilate mother was walking up and d >wn the platform. Her agony was almost unbearable. When she was handed a dispatch from Relay couched in the bcaufilul - words: “Kid safe,”" she wept for joy. From her explanation it appears that before the train started she had “just run across the street to get a bottle of milk.” A resident of Battle Creek, Mich., was called to his front dour last Thursday morning by a vigorous jerk of the bell. What he saw on the door-step was a clothes-basket, and it did not take long to discover that the basket contained a baby. As that household already had a full assortment of treasures of that kind, the citizen was angry as well as shocked. He lost no time in sending the basket with its .contents to the police station. As the colored man who had 'been hired to carry the baby to the station entered the door he saw a young woman frantically endeavoring to give an officer a piece of information. Glancing at the basket, however, the woman uttered a scream and hugged the infant until it in turn became demonstoative. The fonndling had found its mother, whose strange explanation that a discharged and angry servant girl had kidnapped it while the family were at breakfast, proved to be true. Near Abilene, Kan., a few days ago, a mother left her infant strapped in a chair in the summer kitchen. A wind storm came up suddenly. From a dead calm a gale £,:o3e in twenty seconds. At the first warning the mother hurried to look aftef «her child, expecting to find the cherub quietly drinking the contents of its thumb. To her amazement and extreme horror, she saw her baby and basket, pots, pans and buckets flying promiscuously along with the tornado. The wind subsided almost as quickly as it had risen and the mother had the satisfaction of seeing the basket drop right side up on a pile of hay, abviut 130 feet beyond the yard fence. She was much more gratified to see that the baby had sustained no serious injury. Its appetite was good immediately after the rescue. A man djpve up at a terrific pace to the railroad* fetation at Farwell, Mich., and inquired for his. wife. She haa eloped with a neighbor and was about to take the train for the East. “Thank

goodness, I’m in time!” the husband cried in great excitement. The wife shrank cowering iuto a seat, and the bystanders,expected a tragedy. “Here is your baby,” he continued producing a wee bit of a girl; “reckon you forgot her in your hurry. Now you can get off as fast as you like.” Leaving the baby with the runaway pair he drove away, with his placidity entirely recovered. „ On the afternoon of the 2d inst Raphael Durbin, a farmer, was driving with his wife and baby near Howard, Ohio. Coming to Little Jelloway creek, Mr. Durbin found that stream very much swollen. He whipped his horses into the water. About midway iri the stream the horses were swept from their feet and the wagon overturned. In the excitement of the moment the baby was forgotten. A few minutes afterward it was found-alive ahd'well on the wagon seat several hundred yards down stream.