The times., 1898-04-17


Mother Kelly with Tim, as red and hot
as a burning coal, stretched across her
lap, delirious and moaning with pain.
'Spake low, dariin'," whispered the
widow. wiping her eyes with a for
lornness that went to Kitty's heart and
almost stayed there.
'Oh. but it's the fever that's scorch-
in his body-do We look at his wee
arrums, an he always as fat as a
mole. Sure, it's cryin' after ye night
an day he's been, an the doctor teliin'
me to send for ye, but ! minded how
yer promised to come and that we've
clean broke me heart wild your own
word. There, hist, Tim, baby, here's
Sister Kitty come at last"
Don't wake him. mother" the girl
interrupted hastily. almost tearfuny.
4 can't stop this evening. /" She
could not plead so tTifiing an excuse as
an expected visit from a future SON
in-laW that her mother had never
heard of and that it was own settled in
tention that she never should, SO she
stopped her explanations, and empty
ing her purse put almost all of its
small contents in her mothers hand.
But I'm coming back tomorrow, y
she said, as she got up from her knees
beside the unconscious child. And.
let him know I've been here"
She tried to fashion some excuse for
deserting them all, but it struck cross
wise in her throat She kissed her
mother and feeling really sorry she
could not allow the mumpy Odds and
Ends to do the same. she went away,
carrying a sore conscience with her to
her cuddy under the caves.
Yes, it was cruel to leave her nl2ther
cruel to stay away from Tim. But what
if she should catch that awful fever?
Tim had no good looks to lose, and be-
sides if he died he would be sure to go
to heaven. She knew her doctor could
cure the baby, but that would be tell
ing him everything, and she did not in
tend him to know
And as she thought these things Tins
ugly little dirty face seemed to come
between her and the trees as she stood
at her slice Of a window; between her
and the glass as she put on her best
frills for her Sunday night visitor,
even between the two, in the twilight,
as they sat in the tawdry parlor she
had chosen to make her home.
Presently somebody rang the doorbell
and a women with sobs in her voice and
a brogue on her tongue said that DR..
Blanks servant had said she would
find him there and would he come at
once. her little boy was dying.
And the boy was Baby Tim. At the
first word the girl crouched behind the
avalanche of dingy lace that tumbled
about the window and there she re-
mained until the doctor. with the brief
est excuse. had put the woman in his
buggy and the gray horse, with the
fine long tail had trotted them both
away.
The twilight blackened into night,
and still the girl crouched behind the
avalanche of dingy lace, wanting with
all her heart to do the thing she knew
would be right and lacking the moral
nerve TO bridge.
1t is easy enough for a penniless
prodigal to give up corn husks for rich
fathers domain, but for girl, not too
lofty in her ideals of right and wrong,
to voluntarily surrender the advant-
ages she has gained for herself and to
go back to an alley choked up with
want and favored with soapsuds and
babies-only those who have fought
the same sort of battle and conquered
can know what victory costs.
When she got to the rickety scrap
of q house il was so late that the
murnpy Odds and Ends were asleep and
Mother Kelly was sitting in her spInt
rocker, swaying her body with that ma
ternal rythm that comes of long sooth-
ing a fretting child, but Tim was not
in her arms
He was lying on an ironing board,
Sc on two chairs and draped to the
floor with a sheet. At his head stood
the little statue of the Mother and
Child. between two fiickering candles,
and in one of the tiny hands that lay
like apple blossoms on his breast, the
girl caught the dusky CLEAN of a
penny
And King Solomon, in all his glory,
was never arrayed in the majesty that
clothed the tiny, white. smiling thing
that used TO be kelly'S kid Why,
even the rooms seemed to reflect the
dignity that transfigured Tins face
and the swaying, sobbing figure by the
ironing board seemed akin to that
other Mother of Sorrows, who wept at
the feet of her Son.
Mrs. Kelly's prodigal was not clever
enough to set her repentance in the
phrases of him who said: Father, |
have sinned against heaven and thee, +"
but it was with just as honest wish
10 undo her folly that she bent over the
rigid little shape and whispered:
Tim I've come home for good.
And would a doctor who owned a
gray horse with a fine long tail marry
a girl who lived in an alley? Well,
maybe he would and then again may
be he wouldn't. You see, she only went