Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1879-03-25
a Patient Father,

Patient Father.
After we left Vincennes this afternoon.
writes Bob Burdette in the Burlington
Hdsrksys, man got on with his wife
and two children. One of the little
ones, 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 did 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 "allowed he might
have the earache. % The passengers
we're full of sympathy for which, as they
father appeared unspeakably grateful
for. and the boy Indignantly repelled.
One man gave him an orange the boy
hurled it spitefnlly into the face Of his
baby sister, sleeping in the mothers
lap, and the terrified young lady added
her wall of fright and pain to the gem
eral chorus. A lady gave him her hand
SOME smelling bottle he dashed it on
the floor, and howled more fiercely than
ever. handed the poor little innocent
my pocket knife away it went out of
the car 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
and impatience yielded to the fathers
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
fellow just began to forget his troubles
in sleep as the train slowed up to a sta
ton, when suddenly the father, walking
up and down the aisle with him, darted
glance out of the window, stopped
down and looked again, and shouted:
What's the matter with that man ?'
Hello |" he shouted. 'sHere, Emily,
take him watch him-here I can't
wait Don't let him roll off Watch
him r.
With hasty motion he tossed the
baby into the seat behind his wife, get
ting him just about hall way on. He
gave hurried iab at the boy with his
extended fingers to push him further on
the seat, but missed him and darted off
to the door Of the car, shot out of it, and
was down on the platform in a flash.
The mother quickly put down the baby
and turned to attend to the boy, two or
three passengers at the same time sprang
forward with the same purpose ell too
late before the father was well out of
the door, the boy toppled off the seat.
came to the floor with a thump and
howl cf real pain and fright, and when
the father, looking sheepish and cheap,
came back into the car, the poor little
fellow, wide awake to all his old miseries
and the one crowning, insulted new one,
was screaming away at q rate that fairly
made the windows rattle, and kept it up
until we got to Terre Haute, and I don't
know how long after that. And all this
time nobody else had been able co see
anything to excite the father to such a
remarkable degree, and he saw our won
der in our coutenances.
The man was coal-miner, he ex-
planned, as he took the screaming boy,
(" and I reckon he'd been loadin' car
of coal and got his face smutty."
Our amazement looked out of our
eyes greater than ever.
"An' thought" continued the faith
er, nervously patting the boys back,
and seeing that some further explanar
ton was necessary and expected, 81
thought his eye was blacked, an 1
lowed maybe there'd been fight"