The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1881-10-18


But you said," Mrs. FoSsythe inter-
rupted, nervously interested, that
there was baby?"
Yes, ma'am. Tom, my mate, had
gut a.holt of it somehow IN in the water
while tryin' to save its mother. Look
Acre, jack said he, when we was
astraddle the boat.
Here's the baby that belonged to the
woman in the bow. What on earth'll
we do with itS'' Hang on to it'll sup
pose, for we can't throw 1t overheard,
said L."
"And was it alive pr Mrs. Forsythe
asked eagerly.
"Oh yes, ma'am. Alive and well.
Tom wrung out his shirt and wrapped
the little thing up with it; and then we
took turns a.holden' il an keepin' it
warm agin our bodies till mornin'.
A Portagese brig picked us up then,
along with lot of the Albion's passen-
geas that it had already rescued"
" The Albion ~ exclaimed Mr.. For
sythe, starting from his chair. Was
that the name of the steamer 7"
" 1t was my baby my baby ~ Mrs.
Forsythe cried, now losing control Of
herself and dropping down in front of
the man. "Tell me more-all-quick
"Why, ma'am" he said, rather
startled, "that's just what another lady
said, when we took the child aboard the
the brig. It's mine! mine u said she
givin a shrek and runnin' toward US.
Are you the same lady %
"No, mol But where is the child
What became of it 7"
:" The lady took 1.-THE fureign-loOkin'
lady. You see she had lost hern aboard
the steamer, and when she saw that
this 'ere baby was not the one, says:
'Ma'am, it's the baby of the woman
that's drowned. My mate here saved
it," Then she hugged it in her arms
and cried over it, and said she'd keep it
always"
Mrs. Forsythe stood up, placed her
hands to her head and tried to enter
the house but she would have fallen
had not her husband thrown his arm
about her and helped her in.
A few minutes afterward he found
the old sailor limping up and down the
lawn in the dusk, with his hands In his
pockets, meditating evidently on the ex-
traordinary effect his narrative had pro-
duced. The brig, he said, was bound to
Lisbon, and carried them and the pas
sengers 1t had picked up to that port
The woman who had taken the child
looked like an Italian, but she spoke
English as well as anybody. He didn't
know what her name was but when
she left the brig at Lisbon she went to
some place in the south of France, from
which she sent back to his and mate
himself purse of five hundred francs.
After they had squandered the money,
they shipped on an English vessel for
a voyage to South America, and had
never since seen or heard of anybody
who was aboard the Albion when she
was wrecked.
That was all the information that
could be gained from the man, but
neither Mr.. or Mrs. Forsythe doubted
that the child was theirs. The woman
who had taken it was probably the
mother of Rupert. In other words, by
a strange series of events, they had ex-
changed children. Sitting before the
fireuntil far into the night, Mrs. For
sythe brought back out of the dead past
her little girls face and lived over again
much of the agony she had experienced
long ago. The child had been alive all
these years, perhaps while she believed
her drowned. She had been growing
up somewhere with strangers believing
them her parents, calling another
woman mother. They had seen the
little thing begin to walk and had taught
her the first words she spoke. Possibly
they had also watched her grow to be a
fair young girl, and she was their daugh-
ter now. Or-perhaps, after all she was
dead, buried away off in foreign land |;
and, instead of the tall, slender girl who
resembled her, there was only little
child's tombstone standing in some lone
ly, forgotten place, where the weeds
grew over the mound before 1t. Oh
was there any way she could find her,
that she could know the truth i? Could
not the whole wide world be searched
Mr.. Forsythe said that the list of pas
sengers who sailed on the ill-fated steam
er could, of course, still be found in the
account the newspapers published of the