Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1883-06-08
AFTER FIFTY YEARS,
An Old Lady Wants 10 Return 10 Her
nSba

If there is any one thing for which
Mr.. ID. C.. Toal, of the Brooklyn
Charities Commissioners, is peculi-
arly well known. it is for the number
of strange ladies who are drawn into his
sanctum by the unexplained magnetic
charm of his presence and who wander
into the office without the remotest
idea of what they have come for or
whom they have come to see.
The other day he had another one,
and the fame of her visit had penetra-
ted, not only to the outer office where
Messrs. Short and Douglass Sullivan
are smiling over it and wondering how
Mr.. Toal likes his distinction, but even
to the officials of the penitentiary and
the lunatic asylum where Warden
Green and DIR. Shaw are chuckling at
the chief clerks expense.
But the story had its pathetic side,
and a drizzling tear was seen 10 drop
from Mr.. TOal's eye rs he related 1t to a
repOrter, who looked on his emotion
with a pitying eye, and proceeded to
take down in black and white the be-
HlllllllN anu Tic Gnu vi lax ScAAN'-AS
females distressing story.
Sorrow n Female
For this particular female was a sor-
rowing one, and if dress is the prime
thing at which a looks in her
view of life and its objects, she had a
reason for her sorrow. Her habiliments
| would hardly have done for a Wander
| bilt hall, neither would they have suai-
ced for an ordinary Crow Hill picnic.
Easier to imagine than to describe, was
the costume in which h presented
herself in the august presence OF the
Charities Commissioners chief clerk.
The reporter who took Mr.. TOaTs ante
mortem statement is perhaps too mod
est TO repeat all the bare details which
were poured into his receptive ear, but
II NAV suffice to say that this woman
was old, that her dress was ~dilapidated,
| that her straw hat would hardly be con-
| demned on account of lacking facilities
for ventilation, and that the decidedly
worn appearance which characterized
Mr.. Toals visitor was only relieved by
a single strip of bright cOlored ribbon
which hung in melancholy Loneliness
from the rear Of her antiquated head
gear.
And when the woman spoke ner voice
had no striking lack of harmony with
heI external accOutrements. The tears
seemed to be struggling
To Force Themselves Out
at her throat, and Der eyes wandered
meanwhile to the portrait of Lydia
Pinkham which Mr.. Toal IN his devo-
ton to the useful rather than the beau
tiful las substituted for that of the Jer-
sey Lily which Commissioner Joe
Reeve had surreptitiously ~ensconced on
the chief clerks desk.
At last she managed to blirt out that
she was "going home" and Mr.. Toal
suggested in his poetical, not original,
fashion that it was about time she en-
tered
The low green tent
Whose curtain never outward turns.
"Oh, no." she sighed, mot yet, not
not YETI and then continued: 81 am
going back to my old man, my dear old
man. l LETT him fifty years ago." and
an additional quaver in the melancholy
voice seemed to say that if her memory
was not methodical in its working, Al
none the less recalled to her mind the
P~leasantest of earthly sgEroundings-an
unbrOken hearth&one.S
Why Did IN Come:
why do you wander in here to tel
nue. about your old mau?" asked the