The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1878-02-21

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SIR, if ever fehi moved to do something
that l had NO business to do, it was
them sixty s. ynds we stopped to leave
| that angel all alone in them woods. One
look from her would took me off'n
that train in a jiffy, an the apples and
newspapers might a gone to Jericho
but what I'd a seen her safe to where
she was bound, though wherever gem
tie, timid young thiRg like her could
wish to 60 in them lonely woods, two
hundred miles from her home, was
more'n | could make out. Hows'ever,
railroad trains Amino ways sentimen-
tai, sir, and it don't make no kind
of difference to the Compa-
ny what becomes or what don't be-
come of the passengers, he-uns or She
un's, after they're set down, longs
they've paid their fare. And so we
dashed on, leavin' her standin' there,
poor thing, an the dead leaves falling
all around her and she not minding
them, but looking straight up the track
and into the sun going down in the red
haze at the end of it.
i" That were the first time see her,
and it were the last, an of'en an of'en
I've thought it over since then, and
though | never heard word of inquiry
nor nothin', still it's my opinion as
something awful wrong happened near
along that time. An I've never took
the ring off'n my finger since.' 60 al1
FRAGMENT H.-TOLD IN THE FARM
vGb vel HOUSE. tstHiT l43fE1.
"I loved him so! Oh! 1 did love
him so!'"
'sThem was her very words, sir,which
she never changed 'em nor said nothin'
else the whole time but them there. Not
sign nor breath of name-just
'him.' And she continaly agoing over
it, and over it, and over it, till it made
one skeery like to hear it, poor thing.
!" Such a night, too, as it was when
my man-that's my husband, mean,
sir, brought her in. In the fall-yes,
sir, and it a rainin' and blowin' and
dark as a ink-bottle. 4 He found her
to'rds night, he said, when he was on
the road home here, which he had been
over with load of oats, sir, to the bark
peelers' camp. Is miles if its foot. She
was wandering along the road, he said,
and didn't know where she was goin',
it seemed, nor how she got there, though
she like as not got off one of the trains
at the shanty near there, though they
seldom stop, but that we'll never know,
Il suppose, in this world ); and so he
brought her home with him on that per-
ishing night and handed her over to me.
6 She was quite gone then, out of her
head, it being my belief that she didn't
know me from herself then, nor never
after, poor, poor dear, an SO young
g A man never can see a thing till it's
poked right into his eyes and hollered
into both ears; excuse me, sir, but no
more he can't, and my man he 'ieved
that poor creature was drunk or crazy
Drunk! QAh, sir, think if the man
who was the wicked cause of that poor,
forsaken child being a mindless wand
erer that night, could only ha' seen her
as seen her, when | took her into my
own room and put her into my own
bed, he would have took the shortest
way out of the world that he sent her
out Of in misery and darknesss, and far
from her own. She was a lady born,
as could be easy seen by her hands, the
prettiest [ ever saw-so white and slen-
der, though with nothing on them but
this little hair ring, as you say you've
seen the mate to, sir, and made of two
kinds-one of 'em her own, L know be-
ing the color of gold amost, and the
other---;Oh, |. cans, bear; to think of
what the creature that wore that lock of
hair will have to answer for some day
And of all her clothes, which in spite o.
the mud and dragglernent, could see
was of the finest and sdelicatest; there
was no name or mark of any sort on
any. If she had a. a.dropped out Of the
clouds she couldh'ta been more unbe-
known, by any sign Or token anywhere
about her.
.sWell, sir, / watched her through it
all, and cared for her like one of my
own-which [ am a grandmother, sir,
and was then, though not looking it /
. dessay, being married very young.
She never knew it though She never
got her reason at all, and not even the
little babes cry-it was girl and looked
no more like her than ] did-not even
its cry--as came from a strong pair @
lungs, | insure you-could seem to
bring any thing back. TO her, but just
that one moan, so mournful and weary
like, while she kept turning her great
blue eyes this way and that, lookin' and
lookin', though with no meaning III
them at all, just that awful, wild stare
as If she was seeing straight through
the wall and a hundred miles away
And so g tossing and turning and never
resting, but all through the night TIL
morning, and still through the day TIL
Knight again, and never changing, only
getting weaker and weaker, she fneyel
L. L l..