Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-02-01
Moses, the Tramp.


But spare to US the baby
Boston Courier.
Moses, the Tramp.
Miss Tabby Linscott and Miss Peggy
Linscott, with their winsome little
niece, Alice, lived in an old, weather.
beaten farmhouse in lonely spot
among the hills. The windows of the
farmhouse looked out on a wilderness
of rose and lilac bushes, while the pine
trees near by gave to everything an air
of stately solitude. The whole prem
Uses were spotlessly clean and funereal-
ly still.
1t seemed to Alice that the very birds
sang in subdued tones. Teams seldom
passed, and when they did, they could
scarcely be seen for the thick bushes
at the foot of the garden. All day
long the wind moaned through the
pines, and the child thought the sun
never shone so brightly here as it had
at home.
Two years before the opening of our
story Alice had lived with her parents
in lovely place just out of the city Of
New York, but railroad accident left
her fatherless and motherless.
These two kind old aunts had given
her home with them. It was great
change for the child from her beauti-
full home, loving parents, and hosts Of
playmates, to this lonely lite with the
two women who never kissed her, and
who seldom smiled
Alice, child though she was, appre-
ciated their kindness and sacrifice.
Yet sometimes she longed, oh, so Bit
terly. to lay her head on her mothers
breast, to feel her loving arms about
her, while she told her all the foolish
little secrets that girls have to tell, and
that mothers alone can sympathize with
and be interested in.
Alice was brave and unselfsh, and
her aunts never dreamed of the nights
that she lay weeping in her loneliness
and sorrow. But little children are
ever near to Gods great heart, and
in His own way He comforts them, so
the child's life was not all lonely. She
sometimes sat for hours beside the
little brook, watching it flow over the
pebbles, listening to its voice, and I'M
consciously learning, from the beauty
around her, to love nature and natures
God.
But as brooding and loneliness are
bad for any one, and especially for a
sensitive child, Alice was fast losing
her gay spirits and bright color, and
was acquiring thoughtfulness unnat-
ural to childhood. Her aunts, being
unused to children, saw nothing Of all
.his change, save that they thought
the child was growing womanly.
Alas! too many children grow
womanly before their time.
One day something happened that
changed Alices life completely Such
a simple thing, too. It was in the win
ter, and there had been a snowstorm
the night before Tom, the hired man,
had made wide path to the barn.
This path looked so inviting that Alice
begged to go out, so wrapping her up
warmly, her aunt let her go.
She visited Daisy, the COW, Billy,
the horse, and Smut, the PIG. All at
once she heard faint mewing, and
hunting about she found, curled up in
the hay, the longest, leanest black and
white cat she had ever seen.
Poor little Alice, with heart full of
love and tenderness, longing for some
object on which to bestow her affec-
ton, seized the cat, and hugging him
up in her arms, ran to the house as fast
as her little legs would carry her.
"Oh, auntie, she cried, 1--we found
tramp cat! Please may I feed him? He
looks so hungry"
The fact Of his hunger appealed to
Aunt Peggy's heart as nothing else
could. She set some milk before the
cat, and he drank as if he were starving.
while Alice sat watching him with
round eyes.
After he had eaten all he would she
took him in her arms and sat down by
the window softly. Nearly all day she
played with him, sang to him and
talked to him. When bedtime came
Aunt Tabby went to take him away. but
Alice Rugged him up tight, crying.
'Oh, auntie. don't put him out in the
cold Please Let him sleep with ne
Oh, aunt;e, do!''
ALet that nasty cat sleep in my clean
cried Aunt Peggy, holdinc
Up hey hands in horror; "well. 7 euess
,ot
But something in the pleading face,
10 like another face now hidden in the
,rave, touched Aunt Tabby's heart,
nd she said: There, there, Peggy.
ct her have the creeter If he soils
he bedclothes III w.ssh 'em. I used
0 like cat when Twas ittle like her"
So Moses, for SO ANee called him.
rent to bed with his little mistress
ITO Rugged him up close and fell
sleep listening to his soft pczring. |,
Moses grew fat and handsome under
le treatment he received, and .Alice's
hole loving heart went ont to her net,