The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-02

machinery, but not of voices. Convicts
turned from forge and anvil and bench
and lathe and held their breath. The two
shop guards leaned forward in their chairs
and looked and looked, but they did not
move nor cry out.
what will he do with the child?"
The two men working at the trip-ham-
mer with Big Tom had fallen back He
had control of the machinery which work
ed 1t. The answer to the question could be
read in his eyes. Men had Wronged MIN
under cover of the law. He had been de-
prived of liberty, degraded and disgraced
Death were more merciful than such a
sentence as his, and in dying he would
secure revenge A piece of iron had been
left under the hammer. There was heard
the sound of crash! crash! crash! as the
mass of iron rose and fell at regular IN
terVals-that sound above the monOtonous
hum of the machinery.
He will thrust her under the hammer
So thought each guard and each con-
vict-so thought the father whose feet
seemed chained to the floor and whose face
was whittier than the dead. One of the
guards could have touched button and
signalled the engineer to shut off steam
but he did not move hand. Either guard
had a fair mark to shoot at, but their pis-
tolls were not lifted. Up and down-up and
down went the hammer, but suddenly the
belt was thrown over on the loose pulley
and the mass rested on the anvil. 1t SEEM
ed to those who looked as if they had been
looking through mist-such a mist as
rises from earth of a summer morning. 1t
seemed to them that this mist thinned out
cleared away before TINS lllueicc VI a
rising sun, and by and by they saw the
child nesting on Big Toms hairy breast,
one hand smoothing his cheek, and SEEM
ing to come from long distance off they
heard her childish voice saying:
mo, you wouldn't hurt Nellie-you
wouldn't hurt Nellie! What makes You
cry? Have you got little girl, too? Won't
they let you go home to see your little
girl?"
And the convicts advanced step by step
and the guards crept forward, and 10!
Big Toms tears were falling as he hug
ged the child more tightly and kissed her
fair hair and rosy cheek. There was sill
and wept and ,sobbed and lifted the child
till she could clasp her tiny arms about
his neck and rest her cheek against his.
Not whisper among the convicts-not a
move from father or mother or the guards.
By and by Big Tom placed the child in
its fathers arms, wiped the tears from
his eyes on the sleeve of his striped jacket,
and with God bless the little darling!'
and a Thank We, srr' he returned to his
work and the hammer was lifted and held
in waiting for the hot iron to be placed on
the anvil beneath. The guards motioned
benches and FORCES, and a minute later
the visitors had gone and work was in
full blast The long-eXpected outbreak
had come and gone. For thirty seconds
Big Tom had felt such a raging hate in
his soul that he was transformed into a
human devil. The child had smiled into
his burning eyes-her soft touch had lull-
ed him-her words had brought back his
reason Was he punished? MOI A year
later he was pardoned, and to-day another
fair-haired, blue-eyed smiling child puts
her arms about his neck and says:
You are such a great, big papa, but
you wouldn't never hurt nobody, would