Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-01-30
The Other Mother.

I1G UJnef WOJnGf.
One of the noisy group of children
always to be found in Cherry street
had fallen on the pavement and was
crying bitterly. In a more aristocrat-
ic part of the city her screams would
have brought many mothers to doors
and windows; but here she cried I'M
needed except by her play mates, who
stood about her with stolid, specula-
tive faces. Finally woman who had
been busy in the back of one of the
shops heard the cry and came hurry
ing out of the door and down the
street toward the little group. She
TOOK the child in her arms and cuddled
it against her bosom, soothing it with
grooming words and gentle touches
that one would hardly have expected
from such coarse, rough hands. The
children stood about in a kind of won
der and surprise, Offering explana-
tions.
Eve amt touched her, Missus," one
observation-disclosures, we amt"
F'She jest done it herself" put in
another; fshe alters is a tumblin'
about, anyhow"
The woman was still comforting the
child, and would have taken her back
into the shop with her, had not a
woman just then come out upon the
opposite doorstep and called to her
in angry tones and words, sprinkled
with oaths, to "leave the child, come
to her - she'd teach her to trouble
folks with her yelling!" and ''Other
folks had better look out for them
selves and not NEEDLE with her young
onss!" Her voice was thick, however,
and ner brain dull from drink, so that
she was satisfied when she had thus
delivered herself, and crawled back
into the house when the child was put
down on the pavement again. When
she had disappeared the woman hug
ged the child to her own childless
heart once more, and touched caress-
ingly the tangled heads of one Or two
others. Then she turned and entered
the shop again-the one with the
three gilt balls over the door.
Il was unusually quiet there in the
shop this afternoon, for her husbands
brother had gone off to the races for
the day and her father in law lay in a
half drunken sleep in one Of the back
rooms. She took up her knitting,
which lay on a chair behind the count
er, seated, herself in the corner, and
the needles began to click. A meagre
light crept in streaks through the
dIngy window panes, and Swallowed
the curious collection Of objects about
the shop as though it wished to dis
cover their business there. 1t rested
on the widows homely face, softening
its rugged lines and discovering a
latent sweetness there. She was
Scotch woman, and had the patient,
steadfast blue eyes of her race, set
under brow that in a more fortunate
and appreciative sphere of life would
have been termed intellectual.
Hers was a strange presence in this
place Of degrading associations and
this squalid street. It was as though
a fresh breeze had found it's way into
a stagnant inland swamp. She gazed
absently about the shop as she knit
ted. Many of the objects that her
eyes rested on suggested strange as
sociations to her. A number of music
al instruments lay on the shelf and
ornamented the walls near the win
dows, and she could see the gentle |
face of the shabby, starving old man
who had brought the Stradivarivs vio-
lin that hung among them; he had
died, she remembered hearing, a few
DAYS later She recollected when the
French horn was brought, and knew
that its owner, young German, was
drinking himself into the grave.
Watches and rings and odd bits of
iewelry lay in the glass case. They
were not very valuable, surely, but
abe recalled the face Of the young girl
who hal wept when she left one of
the pieces-the ring with the single
pearl, which she said she was coming
for "next week." that was three
months ago. There were bits of furni-
;ure, too; quaint carved chair, a
foot stool, an old piano,
whose cracked tones with their relics
IF sweetness reminded one of the I
voice of little old prima donna, still /
struggling to hold her place in the
musical world. A rich crimson China |