Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1893-04-27
THE BEGGAR.

He was found when baby in ditch By
the cure of Les Bille,tes on Halloween.
and therefore was christened Nicholas Tous-
saint; he had fed upon the bread of charity
and had had 10 education
When Is years old, he had both legs
crushed by q carriage on the highroad at
Yarville. II was after the baker of the
town had given him several glasses to
drink that he had famed his legs, and since
then he had been a laughing stock of the
town and knew Of nothing else TO do but
to stretch out his hand and beg.
When he saw the uniform of the gen
,iarTues slittering in she san. he would drop
from his crutches and let himself fall AS q
rag falls, rolling himself into ball and be
coming quite small and iuvisib bic, confound-
ing his brown tatters with the earth. And
vet though he never had any trouble with
the gendarmes he carried this terror of
them i'll his blood as though he had inner
tied it from the parents whom he had never
known.
For two days he had eaten nothing The
peasant wife on the doorsteps cried afar off;
"Begonel | gave you piece OF bread only
three days ago
And yet every day the sluggard had need
TO eat.
They called him THE Bell' because in
truth he did swing between his two sticks
like bell between its supports
Hunger threw a confused and heavy dis
tress into his soul He had but a single
thought. ito eat" but how he did not
know.
When he had made the tour OF all the
houses which he knew. he went and threw
himself down in the corner Of a dry ditch
beside the farmyarti of Farmer Chiquet.
Here he remained for a long time tortured
by hunger but too much of an animal real
ly to penetrate the depth of his unfathoma
Die misery.
He knew not for what he waited, but
there was present that vague sense of eXpec.
tation which ever persists within us
He waited in the icy wind for mys-
FERROUS help which we always hope / : from
the skv or from men, without asking why
or through whom it is to come
\ flock of black chickens passed by seek
ing their food in the all nouriShinc earth.
The Bell looked at them without thinking
of anything ut all; then. rather in his stom-
ach than i'll his brain, there came u feeling
that one of these creatures cooked over a
fire of dead wood would make good eating
He took stone which came within reach
of his hand, and being adroit threw it and
killed the chicken which was nearest b,
And The Bell, clinging to his crutches, set
oil to pick mp the game
Just as he arrived beside the little blach
body stained with blood about its head he
received terrible blow in the neck, which
made him drop hi, sticks and sent him roll
ing 10 PAGES before them. Farmer Chiquet
seized the thief and thrished him souudly,
pounding with hand and foot all over the
body of the defenseless cripple like ma
uiac or like peasant who had been robbed
The Bell, half dead, torn with hunger, re
manned lying upon the ground.
Evening, night. then daybreak came
still he had eaten nothing. Toward mid
day the gendarmes appeared. and Farmer
Chquet told them that he had been at
tackled by the beggar and had only defend
ed himself with the utmost difficulty.
The corporal cried. Come, get up" but
The Bell could not move
They thought it WAS a fent or trick and
two of them seized him roughly and placed
him on his clutches. Fear had taken hold
of him, and by superhuman efforts he man
aged to remain upright.
Forward cried the corporal, All the
people at the farm were there to see him
of The women shook their fists: the men
jeered and rallied at him. lie was caught
al last-good radiance.
They shut him up in the town Jail, anu
the gendarmes cid not think of his needing
food, 50 they left him till the next day.
When they came to examine him early in
the morning, he was dead upon the ground.
What surprise the French of
Guy de Maupassant.