The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1886-10-14
LITTLE TIM.

He had been born in q shameful
place. and heir to unkindness and evil
days. There were few other legacios.
but many gifts were thrust upon him
sneers, snares. neglect and severance
from the luckier born-and these seemed
fatal. 1t may be through slaw and love
insoluble to us it proved not SO; that to
the Great Fathers heart the stains. and
wrongs, and sorrows thrust upon the
boy. as to AN earthly parents. made
him but the dearer; but measured in
the cold. hard. human way, his fate was
sorrowful. indeed.
The region where he first took up
the burden was q low one, sunken.
no some quarter. the foul and squalid
accretion of many sad conditions.
Here day of fat, low skies, and Sob
hing quarrelsome winds, that ended by
a wet fog driving in upon the great
city and settling upon the filthy quarter
Ike death-cloth, had filled the neigh
borhood with unusual gloom. The
spirit of insanity. the promptings to
crime and abandon. always exhaled by
such diseased, unhappy surroundings.
seemed to increase and multiply with
the oppressive darkness. In at the
doorways of the low. hah-lit saloons
the steaming. pitiable populace jostled
and crowded; from tho thick. throat
clogging medium that filed the reek-
ing, slippery streets, to the tongue
scalding. brain-maddening potions of
the bar; from distempered elements
without and within to mental ruin and
lorgetfulness.
In one of these haunts of evil, place
of shame. of villianous music and dan
cling, were negroes, Poles. Italians. and
men and women. drunk and ruined.
from Heaven knows what other quarter
of the compass. What animalism!
What faces! What swallowing Of fire!
BY midnight the back room was a
numbing whirlpool of delirious feeling;
heat, sweat. rags, liquor, profanity. the
/, beat and shuttle of feet, cries. and maud
lin laughter Look at the roads along
which these lives had come! threads
running from under this lscherous roof
to every quarter of the globe! to cradles
over the sea, to mother-bosoms north
and south, east and west!
Did God. seeing it ALL grieve that life
had been made thing so capable Of
i i'll? or was the fault, somehow, SO.
ciety's?
At three o'clock in the morning they
began to fight In many the chords OF
j sensation seemed eaten too raw for
further pleasure. Then some one was
struck down, and the Keeling. half-blind
concourse seemed suddenly full of IT,
gers. Men sprang upon each other;
two were killed, and q woman dividing
, the polluted atmosphere with shrieks,
was thrown. jumped upon. kicked, and
dragged into dark side-room for dead.
Then, when too late. the Law stepped
] in, the place was cleared, and the un-
discovered woman, drunk and battered
with the coming Of the dawn. yielded
little Tim to the world, and her own de.
bauched spirit to the mystery OF death.
! OF such stuff are some realities! Out
of such elements was fashioned little
Tim!
1t seems well-nigh pity, into what
shadow soever the mother had gone,
that he had not followed her. But he
lived; a drunken negress saved him
from death to lose him to saddsr fate.
Into nest of evil even more hateful
than that wherein he saw his first glim-
mering, doubtful dawn. she carried
him, and all his earlier years were pass
ed in gathering rags and bones, iu
stealing, and being kicked, and cuffed,
and beaten. Somehow his spine wa.
weakened; know not if from that first
dreadful hour, or by blows given after
ward by those who used him much a
one might the boot toe to drive into and
loosen garbage with. Ons could MOI
easily have told how old he was. if the
number of his years were eight o.
twelve. SO coWed and deformed spirit
looked out of his blighted face. Thu
yellow and green of putrid pools ane
cutters seemed settled in his skin, leav
ing it pallid olive, and his blue eye
had . cringlng, frightened, furtiv'
look.
Away at one side of tho roaring city
and in q leprous howell at the river''
edge, was where the first year wen
over him, merciless, crushing, slow
moving in their passage. Often h
turned sick when digging in the sim
mering slime, and all his base sur
roundings SWAN before him; by times h
tainted in his loathing and weakness, AM
was carried home and burned back t,
life again with fiery liquor. The negres
held bis poor life as in wise. and he
home was Q place of cursing, of theft
of fighting. and drunkenness. Tn
child, like weak worm under foot
used to fight for his life. only to BIO tn
harder cursed. Oh! it was pitiful! Ye
here were thousands more no better Of
than he; some worse; and there be
yond in the beautiful city were othe
thousands, clothed silkenly, fed richly
and bearing no heavier burden thai
tims and. perhaps, too much Of hapIi
ness! Down into which region wer
the mournful eyes Of the plying Chris
turned most often, think youp
But little Tim could not 60 on I'M
changed; mutation, which makes an
uumakes, but yet is natures savior
opened At last.a little assure il his life
gave him ons fatal glimpse Of swee
and grateful light, then shut him on