Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1880-12-04
actually seemed

stood by the door and said pity boy"
in her small bird-like voice.
When father and mother came home
we met them at the door, and Dorcas
and both tried to tell the story at the
same time.
WELL" said father, sternly, ''as
understand it you have taken in lazy
tramp, who. when We are all fast asleep,
will get up and let his friends in to rob
and murder
Mother had disappeared in the bed
room. Now she came out and said:
..He is very i'll. indeed, Jephtha- 1t
would not surprise me if he died be-
fore morning. He is burning up with
1 fever"
..Small-pox, most likely" observed
father.
MAYBE its diphtheria. cried moth
err. in alarm. '.Oh, girls. how could you?
Just think of Mabelr'
..Should We have left him out there
to die?" asked Dorcas.
faint nothing but cold" said old
Susan. '.He's only starved to death;
besides, you hain't no need to fear.
Some yarb tea and nights rest ill
fetch him round all right"
He had the '.yarb'' tea and many a
long nights rest, but he never was any
better; as Susan would say. '.Nothin'
but starvin' did it, but he had starved
little too long. Nature did not reas-
sert herself. and ..Boy," as we all called
him. could not take hold again of the
life he had so nearly dropped.
"It amt in him." said old Susan.
"pears like he gets whittier and whittier
every day."
At first, while he seemed like a sick
boy-tramp, we all kept away from him.
except mother, who took the best of
care of him; then one by one we drift
ed in to see how he was getting along,
and at last the little corner bedroom
was our general rendezvous, and Boy
sitting up, white and wasted. its center
of attraction. We knew from the first
he would never get well, and we tried
to find his friends. but he seemed to be
alone in the world. This much we
could see for ourselves, he was Of gen.
tie blood. and had been used to home
care. but he spoke foreign tongue and
but little of that. All day he would sit
bolstered up. and play with wan fingers
with Mabefs toys, and when we found
his sickness was not contagious we used
to put our darling on the little bed,
her baby lingo by the hour. She is
such happy child. it seemed as if she
charmed pain away with her cooling ba-
by fondness. The first thing in the
morning it was "boy" or "pitty boy"
and the last hour of her bedtime when
she would kneel with his thin hand in
her soft curls and say her little make
believe prayer that we taught her, she
would lisp "dear boy"
But there came night when Boy
seemed 10th to have her 90 and chung
to the little dimpled hand, and kissed
it with pale. cold lips, and then she
threw both little arms about his neck,
and in her pretty, beseeching tone,
said. ''By-by, dear boy"
1t was her first whole sentence, and
we were so proud, and she was to say
it again to him the first thing in the
morning, but when we took her in to
see "dear boy"
Ale had gone home at evening
And found it morning there.
Poor Mabel! she did not know do
we any of us knowP) what had
changed her little smiling friend, who
always reached out glad hands to her,
into that death-white marble. and she
looked at it wonderingly, with unrec-
Ognizing eyes, but when we took him
away she looked on sadly, and no
sweeter hymn was sung for him than
her softly-murmured "By-by, dear
boy" as she watched them bear him
away.
We buried him in our own lot in the
cemetery selfish kindness = because
Mabel loved him so, and over his grave
we raised a simple memorial; no name,