Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1888-03-13
JERRY"

MIGHT me. had we tasted for ten or twelve
hours at a stretch, but literally dying for
want of food He lay back i'll the dlngy door
way exhausted, half unconscious, his one
friend clasped to his breast. His face was
dirty and of leaden hue, the lips pale
p,rple. and his hands were as the claws OF
some untamed thing.
Heavily fell the rain upon the darkening
street: the chill, bitter fog of the December
night grew momenta,iy deeper, and through
it the raindrops pushed their way sluggishiy.
Little ferry, lying in the comfortlcss shade OF
the dull doorway, scarcely needed how the
moisture came that saturated the wretched
rags that clothed his frame.
For two long days no food had passed his
Inns. The deadly fever that had seized on
him fortnight ago, whilst with him, had
killed the sense of hunger, but yesterday it
had left him, just ut the break of dawn, and
with ii, going had come u wild craving for
food of some-of any sort YEARLY he had
lifted lis tired little head from the miserable
pillow of damp sacking that supported it to
asl, in feeble tones for drink, for meat, to find
himself in that darksome cellar alone!
It WAS a horrible shock to the child. He
had laip unconscious, caught by the fever's
deadly clutch whilst the woman with whom
he had lived ever since he could remember
ANYTHING had succumbed to that same fever's
influence. and had died and been buried. A
miserable drunken creature, III way kind to
him when sober, brutal to him when gin
overpo vere1l her, but as she was, the only
protector he knew Whether she was his
mo her, or whether fate had just drifted him
into he.. path the child never knew, but the
sense that she was lost to him forever filled
him wi al awful dread. He knew it when
no voice answered his in the early gloom OF
that vi ter's morning, when his parched
tongue had cried aloud without response.
When he had dragged his worn limbs to the
pallet where she used to lie and found she
was no longer there, weak as he was and
crushed by this sudden knowledge, he
hurried back to his own bed, and
with nervous, feverish hands sought
there for something that i'll his terrified
haste h. could not find He whistled in
sobbns. fashion, and at last, languidly, tiny
shaggy soft thing crept to him and sought his
arms. and with the puppy, his only and most
passionntely priced possession i'll his arms, he
CROPPED his way o the door and found himself
upon the street just as the first faint streaks
of dawn grew in he sullen east
That was yesterday. He had met a slattern
on emerging from his lar ana nau stayed ner
to ask eagerly, piteously:
"Where is mum" and she had answered.
"Ye've the right to ask-y'ave! After
given or the fever as killed her. Get along
wi ye, ye young varmint"
He got along, and all day, oppressed with
the weight of the idea that he had killed that
woman, and oppressed, too, by the weakness
that held him us its prey, he sat in shaded
doolw ays or gaunt archways, hardly knowing
chat the demon hunger was gnawing at him.
Not needing either, because hardly able to
bear the winnings of the starving puppy he
held to him with such a tenacious grasp.
But as the next day broke he knew that he
wanted food, and sickening desire for il
arose within him. But how to get it! In all
that big, great city of London, who was there
to give meat to this poor, stricken lamb? Not
one! 1t was nobodys business! Many men,
good men and true, were they sure he was
starving, could they see him, was his miser-
able case placed exactly beneath their be.
uevolent noses, would, l know, have given
him sufficient to keep him in clover the rest
of his life. But then it takes so long to brinp
these miserable cases beneath the noses of til,
benevolent ones, that myriads die whilst til
attempt is being made, and only one out OF
1t seemed to him Cat he must have do.e
awhile, as when next his dim eyes look,
with discernment upon the world, the dark
ness of night was falling. The rain, too, wa
heavier, and through it the lamps that lit tho
wretched by street where he crouched shone
with a lurid light.
The little dog was dead, but the child did
not know it, l am always glad to think he
know hat Ia halI
convulNively clasped to his breast, and as the
body was yet warm it did not dawn upon his
dulled mind that life was gone from it. He
sat quite still, his head dropping somewhat
forward, and one could see that his face might
have been pretty but for the stamp of death
present and of misery, now nearly passed,
that dbhgured it.
By and by, as he still sat there faint and
sick because of the ravening and gnawing
feeling within him, young man came SWING
ing down the dingy street--a young man,
gaunt TO emaciation with hollow cheeks and
deep SIT eyes, and altogether face sug-
gestive of famine 1t was not a good
facet The devil had planted line here
and there in it-cynical curves round
the thin lips, mocking light in the
eyes, matured expression of scoln
towards the world i'll general. He look ed as
ii he were always carrying on a bitter war;
fare with his kind.
His clothes We're threadbare, his hat shock
ing. Beneath his arm lie Rugged n handful
OF shabby books as if his very soul although
he would have scoined belief in one) was
conferred on them. AS indeed it was. A
student evidently; out at elbows, pennless.
"Eh! what have we here?" said he, stopping
abruptly before the half insensible boy and
poking him with his stick. "Another starve-
ling! Come, speak up, child; what ails you,
eha"
Reused by this rude address and dreading
all things, Jerry lifted his dull eyes and
turned supplant smile upon his questioner.
1t was woeful little smile, entreating, i'm
ploring and openly deprecatng the blow that
he so plainly expected All his poor little
life long, blows had been his portion.
"So' said the evil looking young man
with sinister smile, Starving, ella | was
right, then" He stared at the child as if
nusing. "Here, before one, lies dis
tinct atom of the vast mysterious
whole. Here, too, lies striking ex-
ample of the absolute truthfulness of til.
CHARMING little liable so sweet to the wen fed
good mans car. The divine mercy! The
everlasting love that will not let so much as
one sparrow fall to the ground--to which the
little ones are so specially dear! Here, l say,
Is an admirable illustration of it-a woodcut,
let us say, an insignificant etching," with n
Glance at the miserably shrunkeu little frame
II tue child at his feet. He laughed aloud; n
laugh that cut like b t of cold, cruel steel
INTO the heart of the covering boy. Was the