New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-08-01
ONLY A CRIPPLE.

Here is an incident, true in every detail,
which may serve as text for some OF our
readers to preach themselves a sermon as they
idle away the summer Sunday morning on
the mountains or by the beach.
Three or four years ago a haf-drunken
young fellow. driving furiously along n
crowded street, ran over little child and
hurt his spine. The boy was the son of
poor cobbler. His bed was a straw pallet on
a garrett floor. When the injury was pro-
nounced incurable he was removed from the
hospital to this bed. There was nothing for
him to look forward to but years of misery in
the filth and half darkness of the wretched
garrett His mother was dead. His father in
the shop below could barely keep them from
starving. The young fellow who hurt him
was sorry but what could he doY He was a
fast clerk on small salary. Now and then
a kindly Irishwoman on the lower floor, as
wretched as themselves, would run up to
hearten the creature up a Bit" but that
was all. The only view from the square
window was a corner OF the next roof, and
the event of the day for the miserable
cripple was see the cats climb along
it, or fight each other. Foul smells and
foul language came up from the rooms below
to him. There seemed to be no other posi-
bic chance for his life than to die down into
still more brutal ignorance and misery, and
to 90 out like an iIl-smellng flame into the
eternal night.
Now. Just at that time a little English lad
who had come with his father to visit the
Centennial Exposition, while passing along a
Of tIo ~ in xyhi ob no inrln
lived, saw some pale faced children peering
at him out of the windows of a large house
set back among trees, Over the gate was the
name, Children's Hospital. The boys kindly
English heart was touched; he turned and
went in, jolled AMI played awhile with the
Door babies, and when he went back to his
hotel wrote to his mother of the pleasant
sunny rooms with flowers in the windows and
pictures on the walls, and the motherly nurses
taking care of the little children. 81 have
seen nothing which pleased me better
in America he said - will 60 again and
:" tell you about it when / come home"
He never went home. The gallant little lad
was taken back dead to his mother few
weeks later. After the violence of her grief
WAS past. i'll her many efforts to show her
gratitude to the people who had nursed and
been kind to her boy, she asked to be allowed
to cndow memorial bed in the little hoSpi-
tai which had pleased him so much, and di-
rected that it should be filed with the most
miserable, needy case known to the managers
So it came TO pass that our little cripple on
warm spring day was carried out of his
garrett, bathed, and laid on pure white bed
IN a sunny, pleasant room. The other children
in the ward called to him and made acquaint-
ance; there were toys, books, pictures for
them all The good woman who lifted him
smiled at him he thought his mother must
have looked like that. Outside, the naples
REDEEMED in the sun and rustlcd in at the
windows, and the robins chiIped and built
their nests. There were dainty little meals
brought to him. There was the best skill the
city could command given to effect his cure
Good women with their hearts full Of Christ's
love came to teach him, and tell him of this
unknown Saviour. At his bed head hangs a
little card which he probably never has read
or undeIstood In memory OF Richard -.
"of Sussex, England"
Something this little story hints in dim
way of the infinite inextricabe tangle of hui
man lives and their memorable influence on
each other. When the English lad Obeyed the
generous impulse to give moments pleasure