Port Royal commercial and Beaufort County Republican. [volume] (Port Royal, S.C.) 1873-1874, 1874-03-12
A Strangely, Sad Story,
Little Girl Beaten and bruised by o
Burglar--A Novel I'm one Chapter.

The may be seen in an uptown mil
linery store here, says New York cor
respondent, pale and sad.face6
woman, who, if any stranger gives he,
a second glance, bends over her work
and seeks to hide her awfully mutilated
countenance.
The forehead is crushed into hel
head fully two inches deep, the bone Of
the nose has been hideously broken,
and one ear projects from her hair in
the neighborhood Of the organs of be.
nevolence and veneration.
The duties Of the little cnuntry girl
for one pleasant October day were end.
ed, and Minnie sat with her dolls in the
kitchen, when knock at the door was
heard. She answered it and found q
rough looking man, who asked for q
drink of water and the nearest road to
the next town. Little Minnie gave him
what he asked and the man turned to
depart, but as he passed through the
swinging gate he caught his thumb in
it and crushed it so badly that the
watchful, kind child cried to him to
come back and she'd give him some.
thing for it. Bringing bottle of arnica
she bound his bloody thumb up with
one of her dolls calico aprons and thus
bandaged, the thumb went off and took
the rough looking man with it, and
Minnie ate her supper, put her babies
to bed, said her prayers and went her.
self to sleep in trundle bed. This
aunt had married years before, sepa
rated from her husband and supposed
him dead. She kept little millinery
establishment, and had for long time
lived with her mother, well-to-do old
woman of eighty. Grandma this night
slept in the aunt's bed. The aunt had
gone for some new fashions to the dis.
tinguished capital, Burlington, 80 thai
the two were alone in the house.
About twelve piercing cry from the
old woman woke the girl, and starting
up she beheld two men with black cloth
over their heads and all their faces but
their eyes, one of them emptying the
drawer of the bureau, the other pulling
the poor old woman down on the floor
from window to which she had sprang.
Out climbed Minnie and laid hold oil
the rufian, and poor day for Minnie's
beauty it was. The merciless wretch
made quick work of the old woman. A
blow on the head and moments pres.
sure on the neck and the grandmother
was quiet. Minnie shrieked and
screamed, and with awful oaths the
murderer struck her on the head with
a hatiron two or three times, and left
her for dead beside her grandmother.
After searching the house they.returned
to the room where their victims lay.
Minnie. Notwithstanding her awful in
iuries, had regained her senses. She
dimly saw, through the clots of blood
that blinded her eyes, that the work OF
murder was not yet complete. One OF
them tore pieces from cotton wadded
comfortable on the bed, with O case
knife packed it into the cracks beneath
the "mop boards" around the room
poured can of oil upon lit, set it on
fire and left the house |; Minnie watched
the whole operation, and saw that the
man who had murdered her grand.
mother, wore on his right thumb the
blue calico dolls apron she had bound
upon the strange man in the afternoon.
As no glimpse Of the face had been seen
on this second visit, this was the only
clue she had, but as the little girl saw
| few faces the countenance of the
wounded man whose thumb she tied up
was stamped upon her memory, as in.
delibly as the blow he had dealt her was
printed on her poor, young forehead.
The fire was creeping along in sew
eral places !; the smoke was pouring out
from between the overlapping boards OF
the frame house. Minnie crawled to
the water pitcher, and dragging herself
about the room pouerd the water on the
burning rags. A dense smoke arose
from them, and choked and faintine
Minnie became again unconscious,
finally to be awakened by great out.
cry, as several early rising farmer
peighbors broke into the house. The
poor old woman had been hours dead,
and Minnie's chances for living were
courted nothing, but the girl was young
and strong, and even with the rude
skill of country practitioners Minnie
got well, and dreadfully disfgured
lived to work out dreadful vengeance.
The aunt returned and wept and
mourned the mother murdered, and the
little neice so terribly wounded. In
due time after Minnie was we'll a benevo.
lent person took the child into the
mountains of New Hampshire to regain
the strength lost in that night of terror.
During the visit which lasted all the
next summer, the supposed dead hus.
band of the aunt turned up, told dis
NAL tale of hardship in the mines of New
South Wales, shipwreck and sickness ir
the four quarters of the globe. Woman
like, the woman forgave the wanderer
and selling the old farm at his instiga'
ton, both went to live in Boston
Some months after this change, while
the husband was away, the aunt sent
for Minnie, and Minnie straightwaJ
obeyed, though the kind people she
was with urged her to remain, saying
the poor, disfgured creature would no
attract the attention among them she
would in city of strangers. Butaffec
tion for her aunt determined the child
and she arrived at her relatives and
had been there week, when one even
ing she, in passing through the hall
met a man to whom, after giving one
glance, she flew. Catching him by the
throat she screamed like one mad.
The different inmates of the house
speedily gathered on the scene. Min.
1 al. -
nounced him as the murderer of her
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