The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1892-09-21

was MS mOtner. And then the door
closed with bang.
Pasquale knew, what it was which the
man had thrown out, and he knew what
the black, ugly drops were upon the
bricks and why the little heap of fur,
after long shudder, lay so still.
Pasquale was only Z, but he knew the
classics of crime and death.
He held his hand before his face and
fled.
He never quite knew bow he passed
that day.
Children know agony-who doubts it,
At night he stole back to the same
place.
He saw there was light in the one
window of the den. Just outside two
Cinnamon were haggling over the price
of very dead fish. A shadow on the
shawl which was pinned over the square
of glass suggested Camilla. He knew
then that the kitten had followed her
JUST where it had fallen in the morning
he found it. He turned it over carefully.
It's under side had fiattened. 1t had in
few hours become bas reliefin life. Its
little red tongue protruded, and its eyes
cleaned CLASSIFY. Pasquale had torn out
one sleeve of his shirt in that he wrap
ped it. 1t was approaching midnight
when he finally buried it. AZ he came
out into the Bend with cowd, bowed
head he heard the new hand organ grind
ing out the old tune.
"Loye-a-not," said Pssquale to himself.
And then suddenly he found that he
was hungry. Watching his opportunity
he soon managed to steal morsel Of
dried fish and some bananas. Sitting be-
hind his rampant Of empty beer kegs he
ate them, and finally fell asleep. That
night the ribbon of sky blazed out in
stars and faded into empty gray, but Ca
milla did not come at ALL
Time swallowed up the weeks. By
day Pasqusle wandered about, played in
the gutter, swore, fought and lived the
life of the gamin ofthe Bend. Some
times he saw Camilla, and wondered a
little that she found so much to Taught at.
However, it grew to be sweeter than the
sweetest thing in life to have her give
him hasty kiss or even TO scold him.
She was all he had now, and since his
kittens death he had never wished to
see his mother.
As for the man who had killed it, he
had seen him once lay his hand on Ca
milla's shoulder, and such food of mis-
cradle rage had inundated his being as
had rendered him helpless for hours.
He could only lie and choke and groan,
hiding behind deserted shed.
Oh, to kill him?
To see his black blood drip on the
stones. The spots left by that of the kit
ten were still visible on the brickwork,
and as they had run down they had
seemed to form dagger with handle
like cross.
But in spite of the death of the kitten
and the song Love Not" with its mean
for Pasquale, he still loved hissister, that
merry, laughing sister. And the nights
when she stole TO him and threw her
thin, brown arm over him as he lay in
his retreat were the happiest hours of his
life. Her lips might reek of cheap gin,
but that was nothing. Heknew she low
ed him and no one else did. She was all
that was left ofhim-this child off.
Camilla had grown strange. She seem
ed to laugh very little and her walk was
weary and tagging. But she ctill came to
him at times and petted him in her
rough way.
Then suddenly her visits ceased. And
most singular of all, he never saw her at
day pausing at the stalls to beg Of the
people who sold that all might live. For
three days he stole down the alley where
the door was aud the. window with the
shawl pinned over it. Once he saw his
mother open it and whisper something
to the man he hated, and the man had
fastened away looking about him stealth
lily as he went, but not seeing the boy
over near the wall where the brown stain
Of the dagger was.
And he thought of the days when he
had been seeking his kitten.
The next night when it was quite dark
he ran breathlessly down the alley to
the window. The shawl was down.
Within the room he could see his mother
talking to man, and could see that she
was drunk. leering and muttering at the
shadows.
And the shadows were many, the only
light being that Of tallow candle thrust
into the mouth of beer bottle. 1t had
been cut to allow it to enter, and the
knife, common case knife, lay beside it
on a chair at the head of a pallet Of
straw.
And on the straw?
Yes. You have guessed it,
Camilla.
And over her the shawl dragged from
the window lay with hideous smoothness
disclosing certain starkness of the slim
feet. And though her eyes were closed
there was still upon them and upon her
sharp cheek bones daub ofcheap rouge.
After Pasquale saw the feet which had
been the feet of Camilla he remembered
nothing more
That there was crowd, that the man
was cursing and binding wound, that
be had bitten human flesh to the bone,
and that his own arm was broken when
they tore him from Camilla's side, he
knew.