Sharp County record., 1878-08-09

its neck in an instant. A general but
suppressed giggle went around the
room.
Mr.. Thumbledirk blushed redder ana
hotter than ever, and the baby, aiIer
one Mortified look at its strange guard
ian, whimpered uneasily.
Mr.. Thumbledirk, not daring TO FISK
the sound of his own voice, would nave
danced the baby up and down, but its
little LEGS bent themselves into Such aP-
palling crescents the first time ne let
the cherub's weight upon them, that
the wretched man knew in his heart
of hearts that he had forever and eIer-
nally most hopelesslY " bowed" them'
and felt that he could never again look
a bow-legged man in the face without
spasm of remorse. As for meeting the
father of this beautiful boy, whose lie
he had blighted with pair OF crooked
legs-never, he would face death itself
first. And in coming years whenever
he met this boy waddling to school on
pair of legs like ice-tongS, he would
gaze upon them as his own guilty work,
and would tremble lest the wrath OF the
avenging gods should fall upon him;
Alarmed at the gloomy shadows which
these distressing Thoughts cast over Mr..
Thumbledirk's face the baby drew itself
up into a knot and walled. Mr.. Thum-
biedirk balanced it carefully on his
hands and dandled it, for all the world
as he would "heft" watermelon. In
stantly the baby Strengthened itself out
with such alarming celebrity that the
tortured dry nurse caught it by the
heel lust in time to save it from falling
to the floor.
"He'll kill that child yet" said the
gloomy woman who talked bass, and
Mr.. Thumbledirk felt the blood curdle
in cold waves in his veins. By this time
the baby was screaming like calliOpe,
and the noise added inexpreSsibly to
Mr.. Thumbledirk's confusion and dis
tress. He would have trOtted the baby
on his knee, but the attempt occasioned
too much comment. The fat woman
with the market-basket said:
"Oh-h, the lntle dear!"
And the short, pretty woman snap
ped her eyes and said:
"Oh-h-hl how cruel"
And the woman in the black bOmba-
zine, and the woman in the sun-bOnnet
said:
"Oh-h-h! just look at him."
And the woman who talked bass said,
in her most sepulchral and penetrating
accents:
"That mans fool"
And the baby itself, utterly ignoring
the fact that Mr.. Thumbledirk was la
boring in its own interests, threw all the
obstruction it could in the way of fur
ther proceedings by alternately straight
ening itself out into an abnormal con-
dition of such, appalling rigidity, that
It's head tightly in one hand and its
heels in the other, and then suddenly
doubling itself up into so small knot
that the poor man had to hold his two
hands close together, like bowl, and
hold the baby as he would hold a pint
of sand, and these transitions from the
one extreme to the other were made
with such startling rapidity and appal-
ling suddenness, that Mr.. Thumbledirk
had to be constantly on the alert. and
his arms ached so, and he exhibited
such signs of fatigue and distress that
the depot policeman looked in to say 20
him that if he was tired out, he would
send in a section-hand or the steam
shovel to give him spell. \
1t seemed to Mr.. Thumbledirk that
he never heard so much noise come
from so small baby in his life. The
more he turned it around and tossed it
about the more its cloak and dress, and
skirts and things became entangled
around its neck, and now and then the
mass of drapery would get over the ba-
by's face and stitle its cries for a sec
ond, but the noise would come out
stronger than ever when the tossing
little hands would tear away the OBJ
struction. And the louder the baby
screamed the faster the vigorous, fat
legs flew, kicking in every direction,
like crazy tly-wheels with the rim off.
Sometimes Mr.. Thumbledirk made as
high as hundred and eighty grabs a
minute at those legs and never touched
one of them. He was hot and blind and
wild with terror and confusion. Once
he tried to sing to the baby, but when
he quavered out a "HOotchy, pOotchy,
puddin' and pie," the women laughed,
all but the gloomy woman who talked
bass-she snifled, and he stopped. He
gave the baby his pearl-handled knife,
and the innocent threw it into the stove.
He gave it his gold watch and it dashed
it on the floor. He gave it his emerald
scarf-pin, and the baby put it into its
mouth.
The pretty woman screamed.
The sad woman in the bOmbazine
: n rinEaI