The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-03-20
A MYSTERY OF TWO BABIES.
Two Boys Left Them Laughing and Kick
ing In Front Yard.
Nav Xorl

New York Sun.
They were bright boys, one about 9 years
old and the other 10. One wore a faded
green oveIcOat and the other faded black
coat. They looked as though they might be
hungry, but they laughed as though they
hadn't care. Each of them had a baby
and the babies laughed and kicked and
made the work Of carrying them all the
harder. 1t was nearly o'clock Friday
night when these two bright boys with the
kicking babies turned into Willoughby
avenue. Brooklyn, from \ ostrand avenue.
That's a very nice part of Brooklyn. Private
houses line both avenues and the occupants
are nearly all wel-to-do. How these boys
came to be IN N0strand avenue nobody
has been found who knows, but they were
seen by dozen persons turning into Will
loughby avenue. They trudged along until
they came to the first gate in the avenue
They sat their babies upon that and held
them there while they whispered TO each
other. Then they fairly doubled up a-laugh-
ing, and they came very near letting the
little ones fall They laughed so long and
so loud that crowd of children playing on
the other side of the street stopped and
looked at them. By and by they shouldered
the babies again and walked on TO the next
gate. Then they whispered and laughed
again. Ii was Just the time in the afternoon
when the Brooklyn housewives, having
finished their work, sit at their front win
dows waiting for the men folks TO get home,
60 the two boys were watched. but by older
folks, and everybody wondered what could
possess them.
They wondered more when the little boys
slipped inside the gate of the third house
they came to and laid the two babies on the
ground close up to the fence and then darted
out ana up the street as fast as their legs
could carry them and shouting ''wh oop-ee"
at every other step until they were block
away. Then they turned the corner and
disappeared just as mysteriousiy as they
came and nobody has been found who saw
them after they turned that corner. Some
little children who had been playing across
the street ran over and looked at the babies.
There they were faces up and laughing and
kicking. Some OF the women came out and
said poor little things" and picked them
up and talked baby talk to them. but the
baby talk which they got in return was in a
strange language.
Miss Lulu Wellington ran around and told
the police of the VernOn-aveuue Station
and Policeman Collins came around and
listened to the stories about the two boys.
lie took the two babies back with him to the
station-house. They were girls, and the
sergeant decided that one was 2 wears and
six months old, and the other year and six
months. he was quite sure that the two
boys had stolen the babies in fun and that
somebody would inquire for them. So he
telegraphed notice TO all the cation
houses In the city 10 send InQuiring mothers
up to see him. But nobody came and NO.
BODY reported any such children missing,
and when the relief squad was sent out
at night the men were ordered to make
inquiries, and in addition three men
were sent out in citizens clothes to
hunt up the two boys. The babies
played on the floor in the detectives room
until bedtime andtheE the big sergeant put
them to sleep. He had not been able to
understand anything they said. but he
guessed they we're Swedish babies because
they had very light hair and light blue eyes
and fat cheeks. He sent for a Swedish
woman in the morning, but she could not
talk to the children either. Neither could
she understand anything they said or even
guess what nationality they were. A little
later they were sent out to Flatbush to the
county farm.
The police then made up their minds that
the boys were wicked little tools of some
heartless mother Four detectives spent all
day looking for them, but not a trace of
them was found. 1t is all a mystery, the
police say. and they have not thing to
work Cd save the descriptions of the two
boys, and those descriptions would fit half
of the poor little boys in Brooklyn.