The Bessemer indicator., 1893-04-01
A TOUCH IN THE HEART.

Old Abcl Dunklec was delighted,
and SO was old Abels wife when little
Abel came. For this coming they
had waited many years. God had
prospered them clsewise; this one
supreme blessing only had been with
held. Yet Abel had never despaired.
"I shall sometime have son." said
he. II shall call him Abel. He
shall succeed to my business; my
house, my factory. my lands, my for
lee felt this to be a certainty, ana
with this prospect constantly in mind
he shaved and pinched and bargaincd.
So when at last the little one did
come it was heir to u considerable
property.
Had you questioned him closely Dr.
Hardy would have told you that little
Abel was as frail babe as ever did
battle for life. DR.. Hardy would
surely never have dared say that to
old Dunklee, for in his rapture in
the coming of that little boy old
Dunklee would have smote the Of
fender who presumed even to intimate
that the babe was not the most Wig
orous us we'll as the most beautiful
creature upon earth. The old man
was simply assotted upon the child
in a selfish way, undoubtedly. but
even this selfish love OF that puny
little child showed that the old man
was capable of something better than
his past life had been. To hear him
talk you might have fancied that
Mrs. Dunklee had no part or parcel
or interest in their offspring. 1t was
always "my little boy"-yes. old
Abel Dunklec's money had g. rival in
the old mans heart at last, and that
rival was helpless, shrunken, sickly
| little babe.
Among his business associates Abel
Dunklee was familiarly known as Old
| Growly, for the reason that his voice
was harsh and discordant and
sounded for all the world like the
hoarse growing of an ill-natured
bear.
But Old Growly abroad and Old
Growly at home We're two very diff
ferent people. Only the voice was
the same. The homely, furrowed,
wizcncd face lighted up, and the
keen restless eyes lost their express
sion of shrewdness and the thin,
bony hands that elsewhere clutched
and clutched and pinched and pinched
for possession unlimbcred themselves
in the presence of little Abel and
reached out their long fingers yearn-
ingly and caressingly toward the
little child. Then the hoarse voice
1,tn f,,11
tenderness, for it came straight from
the old mans heart; only, had you
| not known how much he loved the
child, you might have thought other
wise, for the old mans voice was
always hoarse and discordant, and
that was why they called him Old
Growly. But what proved his love
for the puny babe was the fact that
every afternoon, when he came home
from the factory, Old Growly brought
his little boy a dime; and once, when
the little fellow had fever on him
from teething, Old Growly brought
him dollar! Next day tho tooth
came through and the fever left him,
but you couldn't make the old man
believe but what it was the dollar
that did it all. That was natural,
perhaps, for his life had been spent
in grubbing for money, and he had
not tho soul to see that the best and
sweetest things in human life are not
to be had by riches alone.
AS the doctor had in one way and
another intimated would be the case,
the child did not wax fat and vigor-
RI Il 4
seem to see the truth, little Abel
grew older only to become what the
doctor had foretold-a cripple. A
weakness of the spine was developed,
malady that dwarfed the child's
physical growth, giving to his wee
face pinched, starved look, warping
his emaciated body and embedding
his puny limbs, while at the same
time it quickened the intellectual fac
ulties to the degree of precocity.
And so two and three and four years
went by. little Abel clinging to life
with pathetic heroism, and Old Grow
ly loving that little cripple with all
the violence of his selfish nature.
Never once did it occur to the father
that his child might die, that deaths
seal was already set upon the mis-
shapen little body; on the contrary,
Old Growly's thoughts were constant
ly of little Abel's famous future, of
the great fortune he was to fall heir
to. of the prosperous business career
he was to pursue, of the influence he
was to wield in the world-on dollars,
dollars. dollars, millions of them
tth iflN ha1 10,
possess; these were Old Growly's
dreams. and he loved to dream them!
Toys and picture-books were van
tiles in which Old Crowley never in
dulged; to have expended farthing
for chattels of that character would
have seemed to Old Growly like sim
full extravaganza. The few play
things which little Abel had were
such us his mother surreptitiously
bought; the old man believed that
child should be imbued with proper
regard for the value of money from
the very start, so his presents were
always cash in hand, and he bought
largo tin bank for little Abel and
taught the child how to put the cop
per and silver pieces into it, and he
labored diligently to impress upon
the child OF how great benefit that
same money would be to him by and
by. Just picture to yourself, If you
can, that fond, foolish old man seek
ing to teach this lesson to that wan
eyed, pinched-faced little cripple!
But little Abel took it all very Sc
riously, and was SO apt a pupil that
Old Growly made great joy and was
wont to rub his bony hands gleefully
and say to himself: "He has great
genius-this boy of mine-great
genius for finance!n
But on day, coming from his fac
tnry old GrOwlv UNA ctricLou with