Snap Shot from a Tourist’s Pen · Improvement Era

Snap Shot From a Tourist's Pen.

Little Jem, the News Boy.

BY ATTE' RA.

Lights were on in the eastbound flyer. The rhythmic rocking of the heavy Pullman palace, that for hours had lulled the travel- ers into lazy day-dreams, was now broken by quick lurches and long slidings. We sat erect with intent ears, half shivering, to comment upon the streaks of sleet that spat and hissed at our window panes. A prolonged whistle, a conductor's call, hustle, bustle, the rattle of small coin, with a mixture of suave darkies, a dive through the whirling blast, with its needle points of ice, and we were housed again —settled for one of the long waits that belong to a tourist's trip. A quartet of travelers, including a portly gentleman with a smile a size larger than himself; his wife, a matronly woman in black, with eyes deep and dark and wonderful; a slender little

woman in gray, whose quiet face seemed, somehow, to reflect the charm of living and loving, the strength of striving and the tend- erness of trusting, and her daughter, a dainty maiden of sixteen, composed, what seemed to me, the coziest group of all the

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groups that fretted and fussed, or cuddled and cooed in the pala- tia depot at C The jostling incomers had pushed me c' e . '

upon this cozy quartet, and I knew, from her confidences to ne lady in gray, that the woman of deep, wistful eyes mourned a .. .tie son, her only child, dead. That her trip would be more a search for one to take his place, than for pleasure or for rest. Her desires were high; no waif in the streets, with inborn gifts of theft and deceit, could be taken to the heart and home left vacant by her angel "Ah, woman," I mused, "is thine truly a mother's child.

heart, and a mother's grief? and what means that well of tender- ness in your beautiful eyes?"

A newsboy's cry, "Papers, papers, evening papers," attracted the lady in gray, and she beckoned the small peddler to her side — a ragged, bedraggled, dirty-faced urchin of about six years. The boy thrust forward a damp paper. The lady put the paper gently aside, while she held temptingly in the child's sight a silver coin. "Little boy," she said, with serious face, pointing the while to great clock near the roof — "did you — hear— the— clock ,

just now?" "Yes 'um," replied the child with a frightened tremor. "And what did it say?" 'Leven, mum," said the child, and with a quick step nearer, the little fellow burst forth into a half sobbing, pitiful wail. "I — knows what you'd say, mum, it's bed time fur kids; and so whut it is, but me daddie what's sick ain't had no supper t'day; and momie, she sez, 'Don't you dast to come home, Jem, till ye've sold twelve;' and yere's six papers yet — will you buy, mum, please won't you buy?' The lady looked troubled, the light deep in her face for the moment was gone. Touching the child gently she answered, "Go wash your hands and face, little boy, that I may see how you look, and I'll buy your papers, all six, and let you go home." The child hurried away, and soon returned with water-smeared hands, his ittle sun-browned face clean and shining, the wet locks of his tangled hair trying to curl. The lady took the papers, slipped a piece of money into the little one's eager hand, and then, leaning forward said in quick, low tones,

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"Would you kiss me good night for this quarter?' The child was startled, but in a moment began again his half sobbing little whimper, while he greedily eyed the coin held out. "If I "ist kin know how, mum, but —— I 'ist — don't "'

"0 nevermind," the lady interrupted. "Take the quarter and run home quick to momie, and kiss her good night.'' When the child had gone, the woman with that strange intui- tional inspiration that comes to some persons, we know not how nor why, turned to her companion and said: "Mrs. Beaumont, cousin dear, that boy, I feel, is the child you are searching. He is motherless, I saw it in

his eyes; and the little one is without love — none to kiss — he hasn't even learned how — my heart yearned to teach him, to take him from out the coldness of body and of soul to the shelter of my arms, my love." "My dear cousin," answered Mrs. Beaumont, "you have learned to see and understand children from the teacher's stand- point; I see them only from the mother's, and that child, I believe, " is an expert in trickery, and no fit substitute for my Her voice choked with a sob, and she turned away to hide her tears. The other woman sat for a moment in deep thought, then murmuring audibly, as she stroked the soft tresses of her own child,

"Can it be, I wonder, that a teacher's love has greater scope than that of a mother — thank the All-loving Father, then, that I am both!''

The big clock struck twelve— one more hour gone and an- other yet to wait. Crowds had come, and crowds had disappeared. The cozy quartet had lunched and settled itself in another part of the great building. Again was heard the newsboy's cry, the same piping, baby voice. The lady in gray started and turned pale. She spoke hurriedly to her companion and then slipped from sight. The motherly woman crossed the room and accosted the child. With the same pitiful, half -sobbing whimper, he told the same tale— daddy sick and supperless, and momie's demands "0, buy, lady," he pleaded, "I'm 'ist so tired and the big clock is struck twelve."

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The lady put her hand on the child's head and with a quick, firm movement, turned his face to her own. "What is your name, boy," she demanded. "Jem," he replied, with a frightened whimper. "Jem what? Tell me your other name," the lady now coaxed. "It's — it's— it's Jemmie dey calls me when I sells all de papers," he replied. "But you sold all your papers an hour ago to go home; and " now you are telling me a naughty, wicked lie, and The child jerked away and fled across the hall to the outer door. There he paused a moment, turned and walked slowly back. Without a word he looked earnestly into the lady's face. "What do you want, little man?" she asked, as she returned the child's intent gaze, and put forward an inviting hand. "Yu looks like the momie I lost — 'ist like — und — agin yu don't —'ist das'nt go back to Tom and Dik."

Tears filled the blue eyes, and a sob broke from the little

throat as he turned and fled into the darkness.

The sharp, stinging storm lulled. With the passing of midnight the crowds at the depot thinned; but above the medley made by switching trains and puffing engines there was unusual commotion — trainmen rushing about, shouts for policemen, for officers, for a doctor! "Child killed," brawled a burly-voiced fellow who made way through the gathering crowd for another to deposit the limp form of little Jem, the newsboy, upon the bench, where the man of the cozy quartet had spread his thick, warm coat. "Who is he —where are his people?'' demanded a number of excited voices. "Yere's his brother," shouted someone, and an awkward, beer-soaked lad of sixteen was pushed into the crowd. Threats and questions brought forth the frightened youngster's state- ment. Little Jem's father had been killed in a railroad accident. His mother, a sister to the fellow who gave his name as "Tom,"

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died soon after, and he "little 'un, about three or four," had not understood, and thought his "momie" lost. Tom and his pard, Dik, had "adopted the little 'un," and took him to the shack by the "ware 'ouse" to live. Little Jem sold papers, Tom and Dik blacked boots for a living. "And ye sent the lad to sell papers while ye drank beer and gambled with yer dirty cards," put in the gruff voice of the tender, the burly man who had rescued the child from the tracks: "and if he's kilt I'll testify agin ye." The physician who had been summoned worked rapidly over the little body, and now, after another moment of intense listen- ing, he stood erect. The little white face quivered and the eyes opened with a wild stare. Tom darted forward and with a strange, gleeful laugh cried out, "Jemmie, ye aint dead, nuther, be ye, lad?" — "Don't Tom don't — don't beat me I 'ist can't— — — sell — no — other six," the little fellow wailed. The doctor pushed Tom roughly away, the child's wail died down to a moan, the eyes again closed. The very heart throb of the circling crowd was hushed, and many eyes glistened with starting tears. Again the blue eyes opened wide "Momie, I want's my momie!" sobbed the little voice. The lady in black sprang forward, grasped the little out- stretched hands, and with the deep, sobbing cry of a mother's anguish-filled heart she called, "Jemmie, Jemmie, open your eyes, dear — and be my little

boy" The eyes opened, and with a bright smile the child responded, "Yu looks 'ist like my momie, what is lost 'ist like — my — momie— and agin yu don't." A shudder went over the little form, a look of pain, a gasp, and the blue eyes closed to open again in that land where the "momies" of little ones are never lost. "The little fellow is cared for," said a very gentle but husky voice, and the man of the quartet drew his wife tenderly away. "Yes, he is cared for," added a sweeter, softer voice I rec- — ognized the lady in gray — "and more than that, thank God; the mother-love has awakened, its selfishness is gone, and now a