Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-07-18
A TOUCHING ISCEDrNF

The following incident of travel is mar
rated by correspondent of the Daily Sara.
togian. 1t took place on the Rensselaer,
and Saratoga railroad, on one Of the North
ern trains, between Saratoga and White
hall
When the train halted at Saratoga, among
the passengers from the West came man
of about thirty years Of age, elbowing his
way through the crowd, and bearing in his
arms child. He was poor man; his
clothes were poor; he looked poor. Around
his hat was tied piece OF soiled, worn
Grape. 1t was evidently all the mourning
his scanty means would permit, for the
mother cf the child was dead.
This man was rough in exterior, yet his,
face was an honest one. He handled the
baby awkwardly, yet there was tender
ness in his sad look that showed the purity
of fathers love. The little fellow lay
asleep on his coarsely clad knee; a stray
sunbeam glanced across its tired face. They
were both tired, the father and the child,
for they had come from the far West; aud
as he placed his hard toil-worn hands to
shield it from the golden rays, there was in
his look a mixture Of sadness and care, as
if his pent-up feelings had been so crowded
back into the inner cells of his heart that
even tears could have been of no relief to
the hidden anguish that was making his
life misery.
The poor child cried; it might be the
little thing was tired, it might be it
missed its mother; perhaps it was hun
CRY; perhaps it was sick, and SO it
cried. The tears rolled down its baby
rbnol~n. ha fafhnr al.
drops as they fell, and then tried to
feed it. He was so awkward with
the bOttle-his had been a life of toll and
hardship-and he knew not how to give
his darling its nourishmeut As he made
effort after effort to stihe the cries and
check the tears Of his motherless babe,
how he must have missed her who in his
life of labor and privation had been his
solace and comfort An unbidden tear
started to his eye, but he brushed it quickly
away. All who saw him pitied him. At
length a woman rich appareled, with an
infant resting on the lap of his nurse be-
side her-she had been watching the man
said in a gentle tone, "Give me the
child" The poor fellow looked at her
with look of gratitude, for there was a
mothers tenderness in her voice. With
humble resignation, as though it were pain
to part with him, even for a moment, he
gave her his boy. The woman took it; its
soiled clothes rested on her costly silk its
tiny head was soon beneath her shawl, and
in moment all was still. Like the Grecian
daughter, who, through the iron bars fed
her starving father, SO did this high-born
lady from her breast feed the hungry child,
and whpn IN hpr OaufIa bOaona the Giila
one lay in calm and unvexed sleep, she
put aside the shawl.
The fathers heart swelled with gratitude.
He said, as a tear weiled in his eye, and
his voice was thick with emotion Thank
you, I'll take him now" Then the wo-
mans nature spoke forth, as she gently
answered; "Not yet you will wake him."
and for mile after mile that noble hearted
woman held that poor mans child, and it
was not Gutil her own babe required such
nourishment az only a mother can give,
she gently rose and placed the stranger boy
with IFS father.