Connecticut western news., 1881-05-04
LED INFO TEMPTATION. The Young Vagrant and His Sick --.= Mother.

Mother.
 Such miserable, ragged object as the boy was, standing forlornly among the boxes and barrels of the grocer's store, waiting till some busy clerk should take his order or give one to him to move on, and the lady whose carriage waited out side, and who was giving her orders to the attentive master of the shop, never saw him at all. So the two worlds to which these belonged do pass each other. Had she not been very busy giving list of the deicacies she wanted she would have noticed her purse lying on the counter-would have seen small, dirty, wicked hand pushing along stealthily, close, closer, and in flash the hand and the purse disappeared, and when the lady turned to take up her property it was gone. .t
 Then there was commotion; but, after all the clerks had looked behind every box and barrel and nothing came of it, some one remembered seeing the ragged boy, and at once every item of knowledge concerning him was devel- oped. He was an occasional customer, the grocer said, and usually bought stale loaf; but he could only promise to assist the police by a description, as he did not even know in what part of the city he lived. But, when the lady had been at home for some hours and had detailed her loss to sympathizing friends, and deplored the sin of the ragged boy as unheard of depravity, the grocer's clerk came to tell her that they had dis covered where the boy lived, and she at once ordered out her carriage, and, with the clerk inside and policeman on the box, started for the remote quarter of the town where, among the poor and vicious, the young vagrant lived, or rather existed, since there seemed no possible way to insure vitality in that dilapidated region.
 The lady was anxious to regain her purse with its goodly roll of bills, and have the offender punished to the full extent of the law, so she gathered her fine raiment about her and followed the police officer and the clerk up long, rickety flight of stairs and along dark passage, until they came to door that was opened enough to admit little air, and through which they could see the | squalid interior. There was 8 woman almost skeleton-lying upon misera- ble bed, her white, wan face pinched with approaching death, and standing beside her was that ragged boy, the tears rolling down his soiled cheeks. They saw this, and more, for in one thin hand the woman held the crimson plush purse, with its gold band, and she was talking to the boy in loud, excited voice.
 "Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, how could you: After all we've gone through, too, and just leaving you, Jimmy, and all you had, my boy, was your good character and folks might say we were poor, but they never could say we did 8 bad thing till now. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, how could you?"
 ''It was for you I did it, mother sobbed the boy. ''Sure you were starv in to death before me eyes,"
 "And what's starving to stealing, Jimmy? It's never a bite will eat that's bought with such price! Yell take il back or I'll get off my dying bed and ge there with it. .i
 "Oh. mother, what1l say? Whatl I say?"
 ''Say! This is what yell say: Ina you were never raised to be thief, ane that in an evil hour the temptation over came you. But get on your knees Jimmy, first, and say this after me Our Father-'"
 "O-u-r-Fa-t-h-e-r," began the boy crying and sobb1ng, and he followed hi mother until she stopped, faintly:
 "L-e-a,d-us-not- -into-temptation Say it again Jimmy"
 "Lead-us-not-in o-temptation-
 The mothers voice was very weak but it suddenly grew.stronger:
 ''But deliver us from evil"
 ooh, Jimmy boy, say it again.
 "Deliver-us-from- "Amen!' said low, gracious voice The sick mother was too near the grea surprise of all to be surprised, but tn boy screamed and clung to her. "It's the lady, mother-the lady tha had the money!"
 But the lady was wiping the tear from her own eyes, and she was alone She had sent the others away; her hear was touched as it had never been before and she realized that she had neve asked how her neighbor lived; neve knew the hunger and sorrow that driv their victims to crime. She put tn purse in her pocket, and gently repri manded the boy, but she took of he substance and provided for the dyinI mother and found home for the desc late orphan. She had never been inten :, tionally cruel.
 , But evils wrought by want of thought , As well as want of heart