Wichita eagle., 1888-01-11
JERRY"

He was starving! Not hungry as you or
might me, had we tasted for ten or twelve
hours at stretch. but literally dying for
want of food He lay back in the dingy door
way exhausted, half unconscious, his one
| friend clasped to his breast. His face was
dirty and of leaden hue, the lips a pale
purple. 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 momentarily deeper, and through
! it the roindrops pushed their way sluggishly.
Little Jerry, lying in the comfortless 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
lips The deadly fever that had seized on
| him a fortnight ago, whilst with him, had
killed the sense Of hunger, but yesterday it
had left him. just at the break of dawn, and
! with its going had come a wild craving for
food of some-of any sort. Yearly he had
lifted his tired little head from the miserable
pillow Of damp sacking that supported it to
ask in feeble tones for drink. for meat, to find
himself in that 6arksome cellar alone!
1t was horrible shock to the child. He
had lain unconscious caught by the fever's
deadly clutch, whilst the woman with whom
be had lived ever since he could remember
anything had succunbed to that same fever's
influence and had died and been buried. A
miserable drunken creature, in way Kind to
him when sober, brutal to him when gin
overpowered her, but as she was, the only
protector he knew. Whether she was his
I,ofh foto hod i,,St i'm,
into her path the child never knew, but the
sense that she was lost to hi,a forever filed
him with an awful dread. He knew it when
no voice answered his in the early gloom OF
that winters 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 in his terrified
haste he could not find. he whistled in a
sobbing fashion, and at last, languidly, a tiny
shaggy soft thing crept to him and sought his
arms. and with the puppy, his only and most
pessionately priced possession IN his arms, he
groped bis way to tho door and found himself
upon the street just as the first faint streaks
of dawn grew in the sullen east.
That was yesterday. He had met a slattern
on emerging from his lair and had stayed her
to ask eagerly, piteously:
@Whers is mumr and she had answered:
GYe've tho right to ask-y'ave! After
given 'er the fever as killed her. Get along
wi we, We young varmint."
He got along, and all day, oppressed with
the weight of the idea that he had killed that
woman, and oppressed, too, blythe weakness
that he'll him as its prey, he sat in shaded
dooru avs or gaunt archways, hardly knowing
that 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 tenacious grasp.
But as the next day broke he knew that he
wanted food, and sickening desire for it
arose within him. But how to get it! In al
that big, great city Of London, who was thera
to give lnsat to this poor, stricken lambs Not
one! 1t was nobody's businessl 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-
nevolent 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 bring
these miserable cases beneath the noses of the
bsnevole,A ones, that myriads die whilst the
attempt i.sbeing made, AID only one out Of
the many is saved.
1t seemed to him that he must have dozsd
awhile as when next his dim eyes looked
with discernment upon the world, the dark
ness of night was falling. The rain, too, was
heavier, and through it the lamps that lit the
wretched by street where he crouched shone
with lurid light.
The little dog was dead but the child did
not know it. l am always glad to think he
did not know that. He held it still fondiy,
convulsively clasped to his breast, and as the
body was vet 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 dsfgured it.
By and by, as he still sat there faint and
sick because of the ravening and gnawing
feeling within him, a young man came SWING
ing down the dingy street-a young man,
gaunt to emaciation, with hollow cheeks and
deep set eyes, and altogether a face sug
.eSz..iye of famine. It was not a good
and there in it-cynical curves round
the thin lips, a mocking light in the
ewes, a matured expression Of scorn
towards the world in general He looked as
if he were always carrying on bitter war
fare with his kind.
His clothes were threadbare his hat shock
ing Beneath his arm he Rugged handful
of shabby books as if his very soul although
he would have scorned a belief in one) was
celsered OH them. As indeed it was.
student evidently; out at elbows. penniless.
"Ehl what have we here," said he, stopping
abruptly before the half insensible boy and
poking him with his stick another starve-
Ing! Come, speak up, child; what ais you,
ehs"
Reused by this rude address and dreading
all things, Jerry lifted his dull eyes and
turned suppliant smile upon his questioner.
1t was woeful little smile, entreating, i'm
ploring and openly deprecating the blow that
he so ploiGly expected. All his poor little
life long, blows had been his portion.
"So!" said the evil looking young man
with sinister smile, starving, ell! / was
right. .hen.' He stared at the child as il
mu.sing. Here, before one, lies a dis
tinct atom of the vast mysterious
whole. Here. too. lies striking e1-
ample of the absolute truthfuiness OF that
charming little fable SO SWEET. to the well fed
good mans ear. The divine mercy! The
everlasting love that viii not let so much as
one sparrow fall to the ground-to which the
little ones are so specially dear! Here, | say,
is an admirable Illustration Of ia woodcut,
let us say an Insignificant etching" with
glance at the rliserablY shrunker little frame
of the child at his feet He laughed aloud:
laugh that cut like a DIT of cold, cruel steel
into the heart of the covering boy. Was the