Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1885 — AN ACCIDENT. [ARTICLE]

AN ACCIDENT.

No one ever knew where the child came from, or even its name. One day a sloop freighted with brick ■was unloaded up town, and a hand on deck was tossing bricks, two by two, to another man on the dock. All of a sudden a wee little chap, not more than 2 years old, came toddling along, got right in the way, and way knocked over by the flying bricks. Bill Fosrter, who was handling the load, was a rough man. It had not been exactly his fault that the child had been knocked down, still he felt very sorry for it. The little fellow’s head was badly cut, and he was stunned. He was carried into the cabin of the sloop, and there lay quite motionless. The captain of the sloop sent to the police station, and the surgeon came. The child was carefully examined. The Burgeon said the case might be a serious one, and that the little boy had better be taken to the hospital. Forster had a sister who worked in a laundry, and at once he sent for her. Molly Forster hurried do’wn to the wharf, took the child in her lap, and listened breathlessly to what the surgeon said. The cabin of the brick sloop was not a handsome place to look at. It was dirty and slovenly, hot and close. Molly Forster set about making it tidy. She opened the little windows of the cabin, and kept off the crowd who were swarming in the narrow quarters. She fanned the child, laid it on a coarse pillow, having first spread her clean apron over it, and bathed the poor baby’s head, trying to staunch the flow of blood from the wound. “If,” said the surgeon, “you could keep the child perfectly quiet for a while it would be all for the better. lam afraid to jolt him in the ambulance. Maybe he will come to before long. It is rather cooler here on the river than in the hot wards of the hospital. Can you take charge of him until I come back ? I will see you this evening.” Molly had already torn up her handkerchief and bandaged the child’s head. Now she followed the surgeon’s directions. The doctor was a humane man, for when he left he put a half dollar into Molly’s hand and told her to buy some ice to cool the water she was using on the bandages.

Molly Forster fanned and fanned that little sufferer, and bathed its head, and was tender with the child. About sunset the surgeon came again, and just then the child opened his eyes. “Well, that’s! a good sign,” said the doctor. “Now hadn’t you better advertise him since no one has come for him ? Somebody will claim him, I supGise. I can arrange for you to keep m if you want to,” Although the accident was reported in two brief lines in all the newspapers, and notwithstanding the efforts of the police to find the parents of the child, no one ever came for it. All that night Molly Forster nursed the child. Occasionally Bill would push his hard-lined and weather-beaten face into the cabin window and look wistfully at the little child. He never went to sleep that night, but kept walking wistfully up and down the deck. At daybreak he said to Molly, in a hoarse whisper: “Molly, take that kid to your room. It’s got to be done.” Bill Forster, who was a man of 40, I have said, was rough. I do not know how it happens, but handling bricks seems to make people coarse and rather brutah Bill would take not only one glass of whisky, but as many as he could drink. Mixing with a crowd of men worse than he was, who frequented rumshops, he was much give/ to fighting, and his face was as </Tten as not disfigured with a blackeye or a cut lip. Bill earned about $1.25 a day, and when the week was up he never had a penny left-* Perhaps if Bill had not been a little drowsy and stupid that morning from two much liquor the

day before when the little chap got in the way he (Bill) would have been more careful how he threw his bricks. The week after Molls had taken charge of the child. Bin resisted the temptation to go on a spree, and gave his sister $1.50. That was the first time for years that he had ever saved a cent The week after that Bill did ' even better. There was Molly working as hard as she could at the washboard or ironingboard, earning 70 cents a day and feeding the child. That shamed Bill. It happened that the little boy's short frock had been stained with blood. Molly .had carefully washed it, but still Bill thought he saw stains on it and that worried him sick. , . . ■ .. ' Next week, when he saw his sister, who was waiting on the wharf for hiin the little fellow in her arms, he Said: “Bee >here, Molly, it’s kind of

hard on you, having to feed this little fellow. Bread and milk and potatoes cost money, and nursing him takes away lots of your time. Anyway, a dressing of that kid would be just ruination to you. Here’s $1.50 f/or his keep, and here’s- $1 besides, and buy calico dr something and make a frock for that child, and mind you burn the one he's got on, and next time I see him let him be looking prime. Won’t you?" “It’s mighty good of you, Bill—and just you wait I’ll rig him out He isn’t a .bit of trouble. When I’m at work I take him to the laundry, and he’s a real pet there. I used to be afraid he was kind of dazed—but don’t you bother, Bill, he’s all right, for he takes to playing now. He’s only quiet on account of his natural sweetness — all real good children's that way—and I love him, just as if he was my own baby.”

On the next trip to the North River Bill Forster pondered a great deal over the child. The fact is, the child, whether he was awake or asleep, was never for a moment out pf Bill's mind. He had never thought much about anything before, and it was hard work for him to think at all. Maybe because for more than one-half of his life his brain had been so muddled with liquor had never set it working. As the empty sloop floated up the broad river, slowly moving the tide, Bill sat in the shade of the flapping jib and argued with himself, and the general conclusions arrived at were by no means flattering to himself. “The beginning and the ending of this here is rum. I’ve wasted nigh on to twenty-five years of my life. Why hasn’t the boom of that mainsail knocked the stupid brains out of me before this? What have I got to show for forty years of life? Just these here ragged and brick-soiled clothes I stand in. Came near murdering a child, did you, you gObd-for-nothing beast ? Didn’t have no better sense nor that? A herding with drunken sailors, you big blackguard, and not knowing nothing better? Just fitten to toss bricks from on and off a sloop. That’s the., best you kin do. You took a drink this morning, and you feel sharp set for another just this blessed minute. You fcan’t get it because you are on the river where grog shops ain’t floating around. Ain’t you man enough to go to Haverstraw and, no matter what happens, say; ‘Bill Forster, don’t you take another drink, no matter if another fellow does stand treat?’ There’s lots of things that kid wants. There’s a whip. Likewise a pair of shoes, and when winter, comes, flannel petticoats and wool socks; likewise Christmas presents. Now, you loafer of a Bill Forster, every time you see the bottom of a glass ain’t you guzzling down something that little shaver wants? Maybe it’s just like you, you white-livered purp; you'll be letting your sister take the victuals out of her own mouth so as to feed ’em to that child, and it was you as shoved the kid on her. Maybe you’ll be hunting around for more babies to knock over with bricks, you good-for-nothing Portugee.”

When Bill had called himself a Portugese he had poured the last drop from his private vial of wrath on his own head. Bill helped to load the sloop with brick at Haverstraw, and although it was a hot, sultry day, and the work was heavy, he never took a drink. The other hands might come back smacking their lips and bantering him, but he stood firm. “No use, boys,” said Bill. “I did the business for that baby—and once is enough. I have got to take keer of him. It stands to reason. None of you is family men like me. I kin stand as much running as the best of you, but don’t you try and rub it in too steep. I hain’t got the reputation of being sweet-tempered, and mebbe I kin teach some of you manners.” It must be stated that there really was no necessity for Bill’s excited words, for the hands on the sloop seemed to take in the situation at once, and rather respected the way Bill assumed his self-imposed duties. Down the river Bill was thinking what name the child ought to have. Should it be George Washington, Ulysses Grant, or Moses ? He knew all the names of the steamboats going up to Albany, and to call the child “Albany,” or “Vibbard,” was suggested to him. At last he made up his mind that Molly should have the naming of the child. “She’s got most rights ’to to him, anyways.” Then he felt kind of melancholy with the idea that somebody might come later and claim the child. Bill had never read a story book in his life, so no romance of a rich father and mother coming in a carriage to demand their lost baby presented itself to his imagination. Bill became parsimonious, and that week saved, almost every cent of his wages. He begrudged himself even the tobacco he chewed. He only kept sufficient money for his, most meager wants. He never took a drink, and declined being treated. To Molly he gave his money. Sure enough the little boy, when Bill next saw him, had on a new frock, and with what pride Molly presented him to her brother!

“He just looks like a daisy, Molly. Isn't he pretty ? Kind of fcleepv, ain’t he, Molly?” “He does sleep a good deal, but that’s natural, Bill. Much you know about babies! But, Bill, what’s this pile of money for? I ain't spent all you gave me yet I don’t need it and the child don’t His cost for keep is so little." It’s mighty good of yon, Bill; and now and then you can give him a bit of clothes. As you say, when winter comes the poor little lamb will want thicker things, and they will cost more money. Here, I ain’t going to take this, depriving you of your hard-earned wages,” and Molly made a motion as if ,to return the handful of silver. “But, Moll, just.hold bard a minute. He mayn’t want it how. Supposin’ work was slack and I didn’t earn nothing. You have got to keep the cash for the time the boy grows. He’s got to go to school, and has got to look as nice as any other boy. He’s to be heddicated—know something more nor handling bricks. Don’t he do a lot of sleeping, Mojly ?* inquired Bill, anxiously. A... “Oh! don’t you keep worrying about

him. He’s been playing ever so sweet. Maybe he’s one of them children what talks late in life, and they, do I hear tell, is always the smartest in "the long run. Fact is, Bill, I have a surprise for you. He never said a word before yesterday. I was afraid myself he was kind of dumb.” Bill averted his face, and then looked out on the water, for the brother and sister were talking, on the dock.

“But—but to-day, Bill, he said ‘mudder’ so sweet, and then he said it over and over again, arid held out his pretty mouth to be kissed. Oh, Bill, his senses is coming back to him, slow, but sure.” And Molly cuddled the sleeping . child closer to her breast. Bill kept right on in the good way he had planned for himself, and never swerved a hair’s breadth. Molly was his savings bank. Brother and sister contributed to the child’s support. In a month Bill was richer than he had ever been in his life. Then he insisted that Molly should rent a better room. The one she lived in, he said, looked out on a dingy, dreary back yard. “Stands to reason,” said Bill, “that a baby should see horses and trucks, and things a moving about in the streets. Tt makes them lively.” “Little Bill”—so they called him, Molly insisting that her brother’s name should serve for the child—improved, but too slowly for big Bill. The Police Surgeon was called in. Bill Foster insisting on paying him a fee. The opinion the doctor gave was a guarded one. “There is manifest improvement—not, perhaps, as rapid as I should wish. You are a capital nurse, ma’am, and I am sure your kindness and attention will help the child. He will come round, I believe.” * The cool weather came, and with lowering temperatures the doctor hoped the child would gain strength. The cicatrice on the head had quite healed. Slowly the little boy seemed to acquire new words. Molly wondered at them at times, and thought than she, had taught them to the child; but then again the little fellow’s adopted mother was startled by words she felt .quite certain the child had picked up somewhere else. These new words came to the child at first vaguely. He would repeat them oyer and over again, at first hesitatingly, then giving them a slight emphasis,- as if to fix them on his mind, something like a little bird that pipes the first faint tune it has heard. The child was more awake now. This change delighted Molly. It never was fretful. The child would lay quiet, with its blue eyes wide open for hours, without a whimper. So it went on for another week or two. Bill, who was always coming or going, when he left NeW York for a trip up the river, was happyr-fer the child was bettering fast, so he believed. It wf.s an October evening when, as the brick sloop was being brought up to the wharf, Bill saw Molly leaning against one of the big wooden posts of the dock. Bill was busy with his hawser, but at once he saw that his sister did not have the child in her arms; more than that, she was crying. Bill choked down his grief—be seemed to know at once what had happened. One last hope . there was. Maybe it was so cool that Molly had been afraid to bring the child with her. “Bill,” said Molly, sobbing, “the poor little fellow has gone to—to heaven. It was last night. He called to me and said: ‘Good-night, mudder; good-night, far-der —now lam going walking in a garden —good—goodnight!’Oh, Bill! he had never spoken so long a string of woris before—-then he played for a moment with a ring on my finger, and then he added: ‘God bless far-der and mud-der;’ and then he looked so lovingly at me, and around the room as if searching for you—and then he died—so quiet! Bill! Bill! don’t you take on so! It was an accident, and God and his little child have no fault to find with you.— New York Times.