Brookville American. [volume] (Brookville, Ind.) 1858-1861, 1858-04-23
and many such remarks followed, but

the basket was there i'm moment.
lie seized one of the eggs, broke it,
inserted his fingers again between the
teeth, and wrenched them open with
force, though they shut with so couvul-
siye q motion, as to tear the flesh from
his fingers, and poured the albumen
(white portion Of the egg,) into the
throat. There was q slight stranglc,
nothing more, and the spectators were
Mortified at tho action.
"Don't. the child is dyingp cried one.
"Please don't hurt the little thing-it
can't livew the mother found voice to
say, laying her hand upon his arm.
'sMary, be stilli' he answered stern
1 ly, while his teeth were relaxing from
their clcnching, and his face as hard as
If he was entering battle; "and don't
any of you meddle with me, keep off"
The bystanders invcluntairily obey
ed, with many harsh remarks upon his
cruelty, but he did not heed them, and
went on. Another and another egg was
broken, and still there was no sign OF
life. Then the whole body of bystan-
ders broke out into murmur, and cries
of "brute p "Let tho child die in
peace - "He is crazy-take the child
away from him." were heard around
him.
He desisted for moment from his ef-
forts, and turned with fierceness which
had before been altogether foreign to
his nature-but no one who saw him
afterwards forgot it. "Fools," he hiss
n A
me TO mine? Take her away, will you
Try il p and he went on emptying egg
after egg down the apparently lifeless
throat.
The mother could stand this no loug-
er. Her first born was being inhuman-
ly tortured TO death before her eyes, and
she imploringly flung herself on her
knees before her husbands father, who
had at that moment arrived.
90, father, do stop him., she gasped
lille is torturing that poor dying
child"
The grandfather started forward
step to interfere, for he, too, thought the
an outrageous one; but he
stopped and said, "Mary let him alone.
The child will die If he does not 90 on
1t cannot do more than die if he does.
would not say word to him for the
world"
There was silence then. In mo-
ment there was a quiyer of the eye Ids,
II convulsive movement of the chest, the
teeth lost their tension. The father
seized his child, turned her face down
ward, and the. poison began to flow from
her mouth. Again and again as. the
retching ceased, he repeated the expert
ment--tlc hfo rstHrsing still more, and
the face losing its blank color every in
slant. More than twenty times had al
bumen been administered, and more
than half those times followed by the
expulsion of poison. When the eyes
opened the father desisted; the little
sufferer lay just alive in his arms, ex-
hausted, its little life terribly shattered,
but saved.
Then-whcn the Necessity for exer-
ton and determination was over--when
the physician had been summoned, and
they knew that darling little Eveleen
might, after many weeks OF struggle be-
tween life and death, return to health /;
when tho relieved friends acknowledged
that they had wronged him at first ;
v hen the beautiful and sorrowful wife
had blessed him through her kisses and
tears; and all knew that under God only
such an almost fierce determination
could have saved the child-then the
father sat down unnerved, and wept
ike a child. !
Not as in "Little Sister Evelyn" did
The poison do fearful office. Eveleen is
alive to-day, and her brown eyes are
opened upon womanhood. But there
Is no hour in my life that brings so
thrilling a recollection as that OF the
young fathers struggle for the life of his
child.