The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1892-12-17
SANDY'S BESSIE.

One beautiful afternoon a few day
after Davie Gillespie's visit l turned int
Second avenue from a cross street to SCI
| Sandy MacNab about some committee
business for a Caledonian club picnic
Just before l reached the shoeshop, how
ever, a little girl emerged from TIN
throng of passersby and entered thu
door. She was a thin, pale, puny chilli
of the kind the cities breed, stool
shouldered, narrow chested, ill nour
| ished, almost untaught except in tn
hard school of experience. | fingered
outside a moment, waiting for Sandy tx
dispose of his customer before entering
but as the little girl did not appear
opened the door.
Fifty cents; fifty CENTS" Sandy wa
shouting as | stepped inside. "Cann;
ye understan that. We puir heather
Fifty cents"
He was standing before his bench, ges
ticulating, with a pair of newly solet
shoes, two sizes too small for the girl
who stood in a mutely submissive att
tude before him. Sandy has always res
olutely disdained learning any foreign
tongue. If the "braid Scots deealect,'
isn't good enough for his customers they
can 20 elsewhere.
"Meine mutter list todt," began the
child's gentle. accomplishing voice
FUND.-
"Come hither, Owen" cried the ole
man impatiently. "Can ye tell what isl
the lass wants?"
The girl told me herstory. Her mother
was dead. She was the Oldest of foul
children, and had seen eighteen years.
though she looked but fourteen. She
and two other children had got work.
~tailor's piecework-and they were all
living somehow, but it was very hard.
She had the money for mending the
shoes, but the neighbors had told hel
that "der Herr MacNab" was such a
kind hearted man, and So
The look of puzzled inquiry in Sandy's
face changed to tender regard as ! trans
lated. Before | had finished be was
nodding his head energetically in token
of compliance and wrapping up the
shoes in a sheet Of newspaper. Then he
put them into the girls hands and gently
pushed her toward the door.
each! Du lieber Gott!" said the child,
and dropping a reverent Old World
courtesy, she turned to go.
"Whaur are ye levin, lass?' said
Sandy, following her to the door. | ex-
planned the query, and she gave him an
address lear by. Sandy tucked a crum-
pied bank note into her hand, and as he
put a pinch of Maccaboy to his nostrils
a moment later | thought | saw his hand
lodging suspiciously about his eyes. The
girl looked at the bill in a dazed sort of
a way for a moment, and then dropped
another courtesy, this time to the door
of the shop, and was gone.
"Puir mitherless bairns," said Sandy,
as he began a loud rat-tat on the sole Of
a shoe. Presently he paused and in
quired, "What said she as she gaed oot?'
"She said, All, thou dear Godr"I re-
piled. sit was a prayer of thankfulness.'
'Puir BARN! puir bairnr' said Sandy,
stopping his work to take another pinch
of snuff. "She pits the proud an MIGHTY
to shame wi her simple faith. An | cad
her a heathen! Hech, Owen, lad, it's a
sair warl for BARNS desertit by their
ain kin. Think OF, mon! In O this
great ceety four little anes fechtin wi
want an poverty an hunger by their lane
in a garnet, the prey O. the evil al de-
signin, scorn'd by them that's no their
betters, neglectit by the powerful, except
by way O robbery, wi ne'er a SIGHT Of
the feels an wavin woods O. the bonny
country or the wash O the sea; withoot
time or strength for childish play-eh,
Owen. What if my Janet-na, ma, bet
ter as she is, puir little one, unner the
sod i the kirkyard that levin sac be-
set," and Sandy dropped his head into
before to his wife and daughter long
dead in Linlithgow.
cts an owre lang tale to tell" said
Sandy, after a moments pause, seeming
to find a gentle comfort in speech of his
loved and lost ones, ''but Use cut it
short i the tellin. Meier a nor in a.
Scotia was so blithe as Alexander Mac
Nab the day that made bonny Bessie
his bride, nor for mony a year after.
The bairnies cam, two O them, but
wee Sandie deed in infancy an ainly
Bess was left to cheer the little hame
an max bright the ingle neuk. Yet,
still we were happy, sac happy, till Bes-
sie-she was ne'er strong, nor her mither
seemed to weaken, day by day, an
fade cot an waste AVA, till her face was
pale an clear wi the awful whiteness O
the great hereafter shinin through the
vail O. flesh. Eli, she suld ha' made a
bonny angel"
Here Sandy paused abruptly, and for
some minutes sat silently brooding over
the past. l did not interrupt him, and
presently he began to speak again in a
low, tremulous voice:
"Sae she went, lad. Better so, per-
haps, in a. the purity of childhood. An
the wife was like a bruised and broken
low'r that droopt an droopt weel. An
i the kirkyard they were sumo side by
side, an a. was pit dark as NIGHT to me.
Frien's O. my youth, who had lang syne
leevit i the new Ian. begged me sair to
come to them, an sac, as all the warf
vas the same to my reft HART, l cam an
here l haze leeved my lane, waiting till
the Lord is pleased O. his infinite maircy
to ca me to my ain. A. wounds heal i
time, they say, an five-and-twenty year
is lang eneuch, but the scars wi me
yet, Owen, the scars WI me yet, an will
be till my deeing day, an l Gamma see a
wee BARN warslin wi this wicked warr