The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1879-04-30
A Patient Father,

After we left Vincennes this afternoon,
writes Bob Burdette in the Burlington
Has0keye, a man got on with his wife and
two children. One of the little ones, a
boy three years or over, was fretful and
weepful, and the father did his best,
and in the tenderest, patientest manner,
to quiet the child and put him to sleep.
How the little fellow lid cry and kick,
and throw things around. He had been
crying that way, the man said, all day
long, and he couldn't imagine what
allied him. He "ailowed he might have
the earache." The passengers were full
of sympathy, for which, as they strove to
express it in various ways, the father ap-
peared unspeakably grateful for, and
the boy repealed. One man gave him an
orange; the boy hurled 1t spitefully into
The face of his baby sister, sleeping in the
mothers lap, and the terrified young la.
dy added her wall of fright and pain to
the general chorus. A lady gave him
her handsome smelling- bottle; he dashed
it on the floor, and howled more fercely
than ever. I handed the poor little in
mocent my pocket knife; away it went
out of the window, and the urchin walled
more Indignantly than ever. All the
time the father never got cross or grew
impatient, but "allowed he could hush
him off to sleep after bit"
And by-and-by, sure enough, the pain
patient soothing, the little head dropped
over on the fathers shoulder, the broken
sobs became less and less frequent, and
finally died away, and the poor little fell
low just began to forget his troubles in
sleep as the train slowed up to station,
when suddenly the father, walking up
and down the aisle with him, darted q
glance out of the window, stopped down
and looked again, and shouted:
"What's the matter with that man2"
"Hello!" he shouted. Here, Emily,
take him-watch him-here! I can't
wait! Don't let him roll off! Watch
him!:'
With hasty motion he tossed the
baby into the seat behind his wife, get
ting him just about half way on. he
gave hurried jab at the boy with his
extended fingers to push him further or
the seat, but missed him and darted of
to the door of the car, shot out of it, and
was down en- the platform in flash. The
mother quickly put down the baby and
turned to attend to the boy, two or three
passengers at the same time sprang for
{ ward with the same purpose; all too
; late; before the father was we'll out Of
the door, the boy toppled off the seat
came to the floor with thump and &
} howl Of real pain and fright, and wher
the father, looking sheepish and cheap
} came back into the Car, the poor little
fellow, wide awake to all his old miserie!
and the one GROWING: insulting new one
was screaming away at rate that fairly
made the windows rattle, and kept it W
until we got to Terre Haute, and I dom
} know how long after that. And all thi
, time nobody else had been able to SCI
anything to excite the father to such ,
remarkable degree, and he saw our won
, der in our couItenances.
"The man was a coal-miner," he ex
planned, as ne took the screaming boy
land reckon he'd been loadin' a car O
coal and got his face smutty."
, Our Armament looked out of our eyes
greater than ever.
"An' thought" continued the father
} nervously patting the boys back, ant
seeing that some further explanation wa
) necessary and expected, II thought hi
eye was blackened, an lowed mayb'
there'd been fight"