Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-04
THE ELEVATOR KIDS STORY.
9. W. Townsend. in n. Y. Journal.

me. No, not lots, you know. cause there
amt lots what ride in this elevator; but
nearly every one what did wanted to know
all about the kid. l didn't tell them most
ly, cause when she was asleep 1 didn't
like to talk and wake her up so 1 just
didn't say nothing.
1T was like this that I first fetched her
in the elevator: l was passing by her
floor and heard her cry. Well, took my
passenger up to the floor above, and COM
ing down heard her cry again. 1t wasn't
cry like the kid was hurted. or I'd gone
in the room right away. 1t was. you know,
like the kid was scared, see? Well, l came
down to the ground floor landing and tried
TO read me novel, but all 1 could do was
just to hear that kid crying. 1 couldn't
hear 1t for fair, you know; l couldn't hear
1t right mean, but L could hear it just
the same. Kind of in my mind could hear
it, You know.
We'll, 1 kept making bluff at reading
me novel, but all the time I wasn't doing
thing but just hearing in me mind that
kid up there on the fft' floor. crying like
1t was scared-frightened, you know.
After a bit l couldn't stand for it no
longer, so 1 just pulled up to the fit, and
listened, and there was the kid crying
sobbing you know-and for sure, just as
I'd heard it in me mind see?
Say, it wasn't my business all right. but
just let meself in with the pass key. and
goes to the crib where the kid was, and
1 gives it jolly, see? Whats the matter
with us. kiddie?' says I; and say, she
catches me paw with one of her soft. little
hands and says, you know, with her little
kid kind of talk. she says that the bogie
man was after her.
so I says what bogie man, and she says
the bogie man her mamma told her would
catch her if she wasn't a good little girl
and kept still all the time her mamma
was away.
Il had to leave her then, for some one
was ringing up the elevator: but when I'd
took the passenger to his floor I goes back
to the kid, and she was crying worse than
before, so l grabs her up with a blanket
and takes her out in the elevator with me.
Say she liked that up to the limit. We
talked with each other to beat the band.
and told her stories till she went to sleep
on the long seat there.
Il get her to bed and all tucked in be-
fore her mother come home. and it wasn't
very early at that.
People in this kind of apartment house
don't always come home too early, and
there amt much talk about it when they
do-particular the women.
well. the next night I heard the kid
crying again and, say, honest, she was
calling me name.
"'Dannie.' she was ssing; Dannie, tum
take me, Dannie.' Say. you know that
fetches me quick. 1t was the same story
over again; her mother had told her the
bogie man would come and bite her hands
off If she made any noise. and she was
crying cause she thought the bogie man
was there.
Il took her out in the elevator again.
wrapped up in the blanket. and then she
says. comfy as a bull pup on a fur rug;
Tell me a story, Dannie,' says she.
We'll, l never thoughr 1 could make up
so many yarns as l did for that kid. You
know, yarns about fairies what are in
books printed for kids. I never read any
of those books meself until l bought one
for her, and she never had none until 1
bought that one. / read the stories all day
till 1 knew them for fair, and they were
not so bad, even for me, at that. Then I'd
tell her the stories, and make up others
about the mugs-the folks, 1 mean-what
were in the stories.
THAT was because I got to taking her
out to the elevator every night. The house.
keeper told me that the mother mostly
slept all day, and to make the kid quiet
the mother would make her dopey in the
daytime, and that was the reason the kid
couldn't sleep at night.
II wasn't minding it, cause I got to want
the kid with me as much as the kid want
ed to come.
1--WE was getting great chums We near
wore out that fairy book, and she knew
all the stories in it for fair, as well as me,
and every night in the long hours when
nobody almost used the elevator Id make
up new yarns till she'd go to sleep as
quiet as a kitten, there on the seat where
you seen her.
zone night I showed her picture in a
paper, and it was about a little kid what
was playing with doll. You know, little
kid about her size, she looks at the picture
a long time and when I'd told her about
hundred stories about 1t, she says, 'Dannie,
what's doll?'
Honest, that breaks me all up. l wasn't
brought up with kid gloves, meself, but for
sure I'd seen plenty of dolls. even in our
tenement which this house would buy
twenty of them.
well, the next day l bought a doll and
some dresses for it. and, say, you should
seen the kid that night! She wouldn't go
to sleep, and me stories wasn't in it a little
bit. She dressed and undressed that doll
million times and loved it till it was near
busted to pieces.
cause, you see, she didn't seem to care
about her mother being gone, so long as
she could ride up and down, up and down
in the elevator with Dannie, and play with
the doll and hear me stories-you know. the
yarns I'd make up for her about the fairy
folks in the book.
But the cop on this beat heard of the
case and reported it to the society. A
Gerry agent came and took the kid. He
had a paper-you know-a paper from the
court house, so had to let her go.
She cried a good bit, but when 1 gave
her the raggy doll and the worn book and
and-say, it's kind of lonesome riding up
and down here at night without her, cause
1 can hear her cry-not for fair. you know,
but me mind can hear her when tries to
nOyaI-aDH N