Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1857-11-04

ooze coming from between the blaekencd lips. Was
ever death more assuredY saw him open the eye
lids and give sigh Of relief He told me afterwards
that the eye was not shrunk. and death had not
begun. He then attempted to open the mouth, but
the teeth tight Set, and they resisted his ef-
forts. But with force that seemed almost brutal,
he wrenched the teeth apart and opened the mouth.
SHANE" cried one of the bystanders. r..
The father did not heed them, but motioned to
neighbor to take the child in his arms. He did SO.
ly almost without opening his teeth, to the servant
"What do you want of t!' "What can you do
with t?' "Hes crazy" and many such remarks
followed but the basket there in a moment.
He seized one of the eggs, broke it, inserted
his fingers again between the teeth and wrenched
them open by force, though they shut with SO con-
vusive motion to tear the flesh from his fingers,
and poured the albumcn into the throat. There
slight struggle nothing more, and the specta-
tors were horrited at the action.
"Don':, the child is dying" said one.
"Please don't hurt the little thing-it ca It lve"
the mother found voice to say, laying her hand up
on his arm.
"Mary, be still" he answered sternly, while his
t. eth were relaxing from their clenching, and his
face as hard as if he were entering battle; {" and
don't any of you meddle with me; keep off!
The bystanders involuntarily obeycd, with many
harsh remarks upon his cruelty, but be did not
heed them and went on. Another and another egg
was broken, aud still there was no sign Of life
Then the whole body of bystanders broke out uto
loud murmur, and cries of "the brute?" LET
the child die in peace" "He is crazy-take the
child away from him !" We're heard around him.
He desi>ted for moment from his efforts, and
turned with fic,cen.ss which had before been al
together foreign to his nature, but no one who saw
him afterwards forgot it, Fools" he hisSed, mind
your own buSi less and leave to mine!" "Take
her away will you! Try it" aid he went emp
tying egg after egg down the apparently lifeless
throat.
The mother could stand his no longer. Her first
born was being tortured 10 death before her eyes,
and she imporngly flung herself on her knees be-
fore her husbands father, who had that moment ar
rived.
go, father, do stop him !" she gasped; he will
obey you; do stop him. He is torturing that poor
dying child
The grandfather started forward step to in,er-
fere, for he, too, thought the proceeding an out
rageous one but he stopped and said, Mary let
him alone. The child will die if he does not 90
1t cannot do more if he does. would not say "a
word TO him for the world. The child is his, let
him use it at his pleasure"
There was silence then. In moment more
there was quver of the eycds convusive move
nent of the chest and the teeth lost their tension
The father seized his child, turned her face dow n
ward, and the poison began to flow from her mouth.
Again and again the retchng ceased, he repeated
the experiment-the life returning still more and
the face losing its black color every instant More
than twenty times alOumen had been administered,
and more than half those times followed by the ex
pulsion of the poison; when the eyes opened, the
father desSted, the little sufferer lay Just alive in
his arms, exhausted, its little life terribly shattered,
| but sared!
| Then-when the necessity for exertion and deter;
| mnation was over-when the physician had been
summoned, and they knew that darling little Eve
leen might live, after many weeks of struggle be-
tween life and death; when the relieved friends had
acknowledged that they had wrongel him first );
when the beautiful and sorrowfu! wife had blessed
him through her kisses and tears and all knew that.
| under God, only such an almost fierce determna-
ton could have saved the chd-then the father sat
down unnerved, and wept like child.
Not as in Little Sister Evelyn" did the poison
do its fearful Office. Eveleen is alive day, and
her brown eyes are opened upon a womanhood.
But there is no hour in my life that brings thrill
ling a recollection that of the young fathers
struggle for the life of his child.