The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1883-10-31
The BABY'S MISSION.

The Mulaneys commenced with a
battered-up old grandfather who pos
sessed a disastrous taent for getting
into trouble and staying there, and
ended in a crumb of a baby, whose
name had been twisted by some incon-
ceivable process from John Patrick
Michael into Tim. He was such a
skinny baby that nature must have
patched him up out of the cuttings and
scrapings of luclier patterns, and, fall
ing short Of sight, had made it up to
him in gloriously big slate-gray eyes
that "opened wide but could not see."
There was a widow and some Cdds
and ends of children wedged in be-
tween the two, and all lived together
In stuuy little house that was as like
as PEAS to the mob of other stuffy
houses that disgraced both sides of the
street-only it wasn't street, after
all, but an alley, choked up with want
and havore1 with babies; with a red
lamp swung out at one corner where
the beer-Shop stood, and dismal title
Indian upholding with its one foot
(the other might have been in its
grave for all Stun Alley knew or both
ered) the cigar-store interests at the
other.
Grandfather Mulaney owned a cow
that came as near his ideal as any cow
could that gave milk instead of whisky,
and he divided his tine impartially
between it and those patriotic meet
1ngs the Al'eyites devoted to poor Ire
land and worse poteen. Then there
was nlg-two pigs-tucked und T
the woodshed, that squealed and scuf
fled and grunted, and straddling roos-
ter that cacklel !, regardless of sex, and
cat that mewed, and dog that
whined-and then, by way of rivalry.
Che odds and ends of Mulaneys, who
squealed and shullel and cackled and
Whlned worse than them all put to-
gether.
Mother Mulaney was one of those
misery-ridden widows the world knows
by heart-a woman who laundried her
life away with all the odds and ends
tugging at her gathers-all save Kitty,
who even resented the fgurative apron
strings now that she had asserted her
superiority to them by standing in a
store uptown.
Pretty Kittyl Her eyes were Irish
blue, her hair was Irish black, her
heart--but all Slum Alley stoutly de-
MED that Kitty Mulaney had one She
was tall and straight as a poplar sap
ling, was Kitty, and she had a trick of
lifting her eyebrows at her neighbors,
which was rather superb, but pretty
conclusive evidence that the diagnosis
of Slum Alley was correct.
How she had managed to grow up
under such cramped circumstances, or
how the beauty her mother had left
behind her in the peat boys of Ireland
along with her youth had found such
glorious resurrection in her face,
never puzzled the brain of Miss Kitty
Mulaney-she was tau, and there were
the Irish eyes and the clouds of black
hair tantalizing her from the cracked
bit OF mirror cay after day, till her
vanity bled at the idea of wasting so
much sweetnt IS on two old people and
gang Of noisy cubs-for there was
enough of Grandfather Mulaney's
blood rioting through her veins to
warrant that young person in calling
a spade spade.
1t was no crime, surely, to rebel
against the fate that had cast her
among them like a jewel in dust
heap, but if it had been rankest trea-
son Miss Mulaney would have gone on
rebeliing all the same. Slum Alley
was good enough, perhaps, for her
moldy old grandfather and those
knuckle-bones Of children, but fate
should have remembered that she was
Kitty Mulaney, and cut her cloth ac-
cordingly She loved her mother, Of
course but deep down in her heart
(for she really had one, though it was
so cramped and sti1ed under its heaps
of vanity and ruinous pride that Slum
Alley might well be forg ven it's doubts }
she knew she was ashamed of the toll
stained face and naked brogue, and
she never meant to forgive Eer father
for dying as poor a' he did.
Those other girls at the shop could
have their ey, nings to themselves,
with a trip now and then to the thea
tire, and friends they were not ashamed
to own, while she-she-must trudge
home to bare floors and sud stained
walls, to coarse fare heaped on cloudy
dishe, with the Odds and ends squeal.
ing and scuiling about her while she
ate it, and Baby Tim actually sluirm-
ing up in her lap from under the table